Ecological tourism gains ground in the Declaration of Galapagos signed by Hispanic-American representatives

Santa Cruz, Ecuador._ With a commitment to foster ecological tourism in Latin America, and based on sustainability criteria and bulkier credit lines for those locations developing this modality, the 1st Iberian-American Summit on Tourism and the Environment came to an end in Ecuador with the signing of the Declaration of Galapagos.

Representatives from 21 regional countries wrapped up two days of debates on the conciliation of eyeball-to-eyeball interests pitting tourism against the environment in an effort to preserve national heritages and achieve a more balanced distribution of resources.

That particular matter was the centerpiece of a 30-point document discussed on Santa Cruz Island, one of the three inhabited islets of Ecuador’s Galapagos Archipelago, some 1,000 kilometers off the nation’s western coast.

Jaime Rovira, head of the Development Department at Chile’s National Environmental Commission, averred the summit’s agreements stand for “an interesting move, a chance to match economy and environmental protection.”

According to Mr. Rovira, the Galapagos’ meeting was “a great initiative” for merging projects, though he referred to “the big problem” some of these nations are going through to bankroll their environmental protection policies.

In Mr. Rovira’s opinion, “good tourism gives you the chance to finance environmental protection policies,” and that such meetings as the one held in Galapagos provide opportunities to assess “ways of boosting teamwork in order to develop an environment-friendly tourism.”

For Mr. Rovira, the next move now is “to take concrete steps together because on a general basis, there’s plentiful lack of coordination among our countries since each and every one of them conducts its own policies and projects.”

In the Declaration of Galapagos, signed at the end of the meeting, attendants announced their support to an initiative put forth by Costa Rica