The World Heritage Committee today inscribed the Galapagos (Ecuador), and Niokolo-Koba National Park (Senegal) on UNESCO's List of World Heritage Sites in Danger with a view to mobilising support for their conservation.

Situated in the Pacific Ocean some 1,000 km from the South American continent, the 19 islands of the Galapagos and their surrounding marine reserve have been called a unique living museum and showcase of evolution. They are threatened by invasive species, growing tourism and immigration. The number of days spent by passengers of cruise ships has increased by 150 percent over the past 15 years, for example. This increase has fuelled a growth in immigration and the ensuing inter-island traffic has led to the introduction of more invasive species. Inscribed in 1978, the Galapagos is the first site to have been placed on the World Heritage List. Its boundaries were extended in 2001.

Inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1981, Niokolo-Koba National Park is located along the banks of the Gambia river. The forests and savannahs of the park are home to a rich fauna, that includes Derby elands (the largest of the antelopes), chimpanzees, lions, leopards and a large population of elephants, as well as numerous birds, reptiles and amphibians. The site is endangered by poaching and by plans to construct a dam on the Gambia river just a few kilometres upstream from the property. The dam threatens to stop the flooding of the grassland of the site which is essential to sustain wildlife.

The World Heritage Committee, meeting for its 31st session in Christchurch, made this decision on Tuesday as it was reviewing the state of conservation of sites inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List, which totals 830 sites.

Source: Charles Darwin Foundation

The Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) today indicated its support for the UNESCO decision to inscribe Galapagos as a World Heritage Site in danger. Placing Galapagos on the list emphasises and reinforces the April decision of the Government of Ecuador to declare Galapagos at risk and as a national priority for conservation.

These two declarations are critical steps in moving forward a shared local, national and international agenda to ensure the long term conservation and sustainable development of the islands.

Economic development in Galapagos is growing at an unprecedented rate with tourism as the driving force. The resulting immigration and increased demand for fuel, goods, water, and public services has in turn lead to a more than doubling the numbers of flights in the last five years. The decreased isolation of the islands increases the potential for the introduction and spread of invasive species - the greatest threat to the biodiversity of Galapagos.

"The problems in Galapagos cannot be simplified to the finning of sharks, or over harvest of sea cucumbers; the problems are underlain by an unsustainable socio-economic model that brings more investment, more immigrants, more cargo, more invasive species and does not sufficiently link the local community to conservation" said Graham Watkins, Executive Director of the CDF.

There are now 1,321 registered introduced species in Galapagos whereas there were only 112 registered in 1990. These include 748 species of introduced plants, compared to 500 species of native plants and at least 490 species of introduced insects. The risk of the arrival of pathogens such as West Nile Virus, insect pests, and new predators is now high. Dengue carrying mosquitoes and some avian diseases are recent arrivals to the islands.

Added to this, the greater energy requirements for tourism and the local population increases the risks of repeating the oil spill disaster of 2001. Diesel and gasoline consumption have increased by 20% and 45% respectively in the last five years alone and the number of clients for electricity in Santa Cruz has increased by 35% since 2001.

Despite the fragility and rapidly diminishing isolation of the Galapagos, there is some good news. The Galapagos National Park Service, with support from the Charles Darwin Foundation, has shown they are world leaders in the management of invasive species and restoration of endangered species and habitats.

Within the local communities can also be found proof of what can be achieved: Pescado Azul, a small sustainable enterprise run by a women's cooperative on Isabela Island, produces value-added tuna products and has recently been recognised as a model effort by being one of this year's winners of the Equator Initiative. The new cooking school at the Galapagos National College, a public-private partnership, is training local culinary professionals for employment in the tourism sector. The Municipalities are working with the tourism private sector to ensure effective recycling in the main towns in the islands.

"These successes and examples need to be multiplied to ensure sustainability, local benefits and conservation of this unique archipelago," commented Watkins.

More than ever Galapagos needs effective leadership and strong support to achieve the vision of a sustainable and equitable society living in harmony with nature. It is clear that the development model for the islands requires a change in direction - the declarations by the President of Ecuador and UNESCO are critical initial steps in this process of change.

Source: Charles Darwin Foundation

An unwelcome visitor is skirting the borders of the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR): iron dust. Why would one of the most important World Heritage Sites be facing this? Planktos, Inc., a for-profit eco-restoration company based in San Francisco, US, has chosen the international waters near the Galapagos Islands to experiment seeding the oceans with iron dust.

The Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) is alarmed about this activity because of the unknown effects it could have on marine life and other ecosystems in Galapagos. Since Planktos, Inc's experiment does not have an Evironmental Impact Assessment (EIA), which guarantees that no harm will be done to the GMR, CDF expresses its worry for this unnecessary and risky bet.

According to a document released by the US International Maritime Organisation on 1st June, the experiments will begin in late June 2007. The same document states that Planktos, Inc. will not use the Weatherbird II, a United States' flagged vessel, nor will the chosen ship leave from US shores as originally planned to avoid being subject to the United States Ocean Dumping Act.

Planktos, Inc intends to seed the oceans with the iron dust to stimulate phytoplankton blooms, the microscopic marine plants that soak up the energy of the sun to convert carbon dioxide in organic matter, and in that way supposedly revert the global warming.

This activity of great concern to the CDF also worries the international scientific community because the potential environmental impacts of the project are unknown. "The 'iron hypothesis' was first suggested by John Martin, an oceanographer at the Moss Landing Marine Laboratory in California, who died before his idea could be properly tested", said the British newspaper The Independent on May 3rd, 2007.

Stuart Banks, an oceanographer with the CDF, is worried about how the unique ocean current system influencing Galapagos could move the iron dust into and around the GMR. Said Banks, "Surface flow would transport most of the surface iron initially to the west. Although a proportion would be metabolized rapidly by surface blooms pushing eastwards, a proportion may sink and return to the reserve in the opposing equatorial undercurrent or via the north ecuatorial current in the surface, then back down through Galapagos".

Unknown effects could come into play upon normal microbial processes and create possible toxic effects upon fish and other animals living in the open seas rather than exclusively near land. The phytoplankton/zooplankton groups at the dust release site could be damaged as well. Another fear is that the presence of iron dust could imbalance the natural oxygen's amount into the water, causing serious problems to some marine life.

"Isolated iron dust seeding will probably generate short-lived phytoplankton blooms that are ineffective given their objective to improve CO2 sequestration in deep water. Just constitutive release of trace iron as found with natural processes such as along shore, or wind-driven upwelling support high productivity systems over time", according to Banks.

CDF researchers fear that large events offshore potentially may deplete nitrates and phosphates, otherwise metabolised where those natural upwelling processes (and their dependant communities) occur, causing imbalance and impoverished systems in other places.

Is it worth the risk to be experimenting with one of nature's greatest and best-preserved treasures? The CDF believes that without an environmental impact assessment to validate this experiment so close to Galapagos there is more to lose than to gain. On a global scale the answer to global warming is to review how, as individuals and nations, we can be more carbon-neutral and not expect the oceans to solve the problems for us.