Nov 17th, 2009 at 9:00AM:
Fernando Ortiz grew up on mainland Ecuador and has lived in the Galapagos the past twenty years. His career path has led him from tour guide to dive guide and eventually dive company manager. Along the route he decided that talking to tourists about conservation was not enough, so he made the leap to fulltime environmentalist. Today he runs Conservation International's office in Puerto Ayora. ...Click on a label to read posts from that part of the world.
Galapagos posts
Bowermaster's Adventures -- Conservation International on the Galapagos Islands
Nov 17th, 2009 at 9:00AM:
Fernando Ortiz grew up on mainland Ecuador and has lived in the Galapagos the past twenty years. His career path has led him from tour guide to dive guide and eventually dive company manager. Along the route he decided that talking to tourists about conservation was not enough, so he made the leap to fulltime environmentalist. Today he runs Conservation International's office in Puerto Ayora. ...Bowermaster's Adventures -- Tourism's impact on the Galapagos
Nov 10th, 2009 at 11:00AM: It would be wrong on its face to say that tourism is the biggest problem facing the Galapagos today. Simultaneously, it is accurate to say that the growth in tourism in the one-of-a-kind archipelago is the primary reason the islands are "in danger." Those are not my words, but UNESCO's, in 2007 ... the same year Ecuador's new president claimed the islands were at "great risk" and signed a decree ...Bowermaster's Adventures -- The Charles Darwin Research Center
Nov 6th, 2009 at 10:00AM: While in the Galapagos filming we ran into an American writer living in Puerto Ayora, the big town on the island of Santa Cruz, researching a book about exactly the same subject of our film – the current state of affairs across the archipelago.
Carol Ann Bassett's book is just out, published by National Geographic, fittingly titled "Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, ...Bowermaster's Adventures -- Welcome to the Galapagos!
Nov 3rd, 2009 at 11:00AM:
Often by the time the mainstream media runs big stories about an environmental battle it's often too late. I've seen it up-close dozens of times during the past couple decades and have reported so many David-versus-Goliath stories – usually positing good-hearted indigenous peoples and international environmental groups against greedy, monolithic utility companies and strong-arming ...Visit the Galapagos Islands responsibly
Aug 11th, 2009 at 2:30PM: The Galapagos Islands can be paradise for travelers and locals alike -- let's keep it that way. There are a number of eco-friendly tours and hotels available, so read this before you plan your next trip. According to Wikipedia: "In 1990 the archipelago became a whale sanctuary. In 1978 UNESCO recognised the islands as a World Heritage Site, and in 1985 a Biosphere Reserve. This was later ...Galapagos sea tortoise "Lonesome George" is lonesome no more
Jul 29th, 2009 at 8:00AM: Visitors to the Galapagos have no doubt caught a glimpse of one of the islands' more famous inhabitants, a very rare sea turtle that is believed to be the last of his subspecies, and the rarest creature on Earth, who was affectionately dubbed Lonesome George more than three decades ago, when he was first brought to the his current home. The Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, who weighs nearly 200 ...Everglades to be put back on U.N. endangered list?
Jul 1st, 2009 at 10:00AM: Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is meeting with a task force charged with overseeing the restoration of the Florida Everglades this week. He intends to tell them that the Obama administration will ask the United Nations World Heritage Committee to put the national park back on its endangered list when the committee meet in Spain this week. Two years ago, in what has been viewed as a ...Ecoventura vows to eliminate fossil fuels
Jun 8th, 2009 at 2:00PM: Environmental tour company Ecoventura has promised to stop using fossil fuels on its vessels by 2015. Ecoventura runs environmentally conscious boat tours to the Galapagos Islands, a unique ecosystem that is under threat by climate change and tourism. "The Galapagos Islands rank right up there with the Amazon and the Serengeti as one of the richest and best known, yet fragile and threatened, ...Galapagos's La Cumbre erupts = Don't go there now, but go there soon!
Apr 13th, 2009 at 11:00AM: This weekend exploded with travel alerts -- namely from the hot destination of Thailand. Certainly the recent riots and political upheaval in Bangkok has cooled the tourist trail for a little while. But something else was erupting on the other side of the globe -- off the coast of Ecuador in the Galapagos Islands, to be exact: La Cumbre volcano.
The volcano on the uninhabited island of Fernandina ...A&K and Fairmont Earth Hour ideas will have tangible results
Mar 23rd, 2009 at 1:30PM: Earth Hour is on Saturday, March 28 at 8:30 PM. The hospitality and travel industry seems to have embraced this commitment to environmentalism. There are plenty of noteworthy initiatives out there intended to show support for a planet that could probably use our help. Of course, some are more interesting than others. I'm pretty interested in what's going on at Abercrombie & Kent and Fairmont. ...The Best Places to View Wildlife
Mar 12th, 2009 at 8:00AM: Yesterday we posted an article with the top places to view penguins in the world. Here are five more amazing places to view wildlife from around the globe. Serengeti National Park, Tanzania The wide open grasslands of the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania have one of the most impressive displays of wildlife that you could ever hope to see. Each year, one of the greatest natural spectacles on the ...Five More Places To See Before They Are Changed Forever
Feb 26th, 2009 at 8:00AM: Last week we posted a story from CNN.com that named five places to see before climate changed altered them forever. The destinations that made their list included the Great Barrier Reef, the city of New Orleans, Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, the Alpine Glaciers in Switzerland, and the Amazon Rain Forest in Brazil. Here are five more amazing places that you should see before they are ...Photo of the Day (08.17.08)
Aug 17th, 2008 at 3:20PM: It's been a long week at work, and I'm spent. Somehow I think this napping sea lion, taken by Flickr user goalielax, would probably agree with me. Goalielax caught this guy snoozing on Isla Española, one of the many islands that make up the Galapagos National Park in Ecuador. Take the rest of this lazy summer Sunday to rest up people, there's another week ahead of us! Have any great ...Dispatch from the Galapagos: The summer I gave up meat
May 11th, 2008 at 11:00AM: Rachel Atkinson hops like a Darwin finch from one volcanic outcropping to the next, then plunges into ankle-deep mud. Squishing as she walks, the botanist with the Charles Darwin Research Station homes in on the ailing invaders: blackberry, passion fruit, and quinine bushes clustered near Santa Cruz Island's last shrubby stands of Scalesia trees. Atkinson smiles in approval. One more blast of ...Ecuador: Your guide to the "new Costa Rica"
Mar 19th, 2008 at 9:00AM: With the Galápagos Islands, Pacific beaches, Andes Mountains, and Amazonian jungle, Ecuador is a little country that packs a big punch. And travelers, always on the look-out for the hot new destination, are starting to flock there in droves. One backpacker has even dubbed the small South American country the "new Costa Rica." Okay, that was me.
Anyway, here's a quick-and-dirty rundown of ...The "Other Galapagos" Island
Oct 19th, 2007 at 8:01AM: Two-hundred-and-fifty miles off the coast of Yemen, in the Indian Ocean, in an area pointed at by the Horn of Africa, is a rugged island called Socotra.
The number 250 has special significance in another respect: the island has been geologically separated from the mainland for 250 million years. This isolation means that there are over 600 species of plants and animals there that exist nowhere ...Book inscriptions inspire travel, and make great souvenirs
Oct 18th, 2007 at 8:00AM: I walked into the wrong bookstore in Granada, Spain last February, but I'm so glad I did. I was looking for an English-language bookstore on Calle Gracia called Metro, but instead I wound up at a different shop just a few doors down. Libreria Praga shelves mostly Spanish titles, but has a small section of used English-language books. A spine with Simon Winchester's name caught my eye, and I was ...Kayaking the Galapagos
Jan 11th, 2007 at 4:19PM: It's one of hose paddling trips I've ALWAYS wanted to take. There are your supreme paddling spots and then there are the supreme among the supreme and the Galapagos falls into this latter category. This piece by Tim Farmer first appeared in the December 2006 issue of Canoe & Kayak, and in it, Herr Farmer paddles this amazing island chain where Darwin first glimpsed the flora and fauna that ...
