Tourism Special attention has been given to tour boat itineraries. Throughout the year, using our own vessels, or joining regular tour boats, our staff has been checking whether licensed boats followed their assigned itineraries. This is a way to enforce our Visitor Sites Carrying Capacity Strategy. We have been working closely with local elementary- and high schools. For almost three months, and with the assistance of the San Francisco de Quito University, a naturalist guide s course was organized.
Naturalist guides are very important in the management of the Galapagos National Park.
On Isabela Island, we organized the first guide s course for Isabela. This group will lead visitors only on Isabela, in an attempt to encourage locals to get more involved in touristic activities. The Galapagos Marine Reserve Management Plan was approved in March, a year after the creation of the Reserve, the first of its kind in Ecuador. The most commonly collected item is plastic, out of a total of 7662 kg of waste. The Coastal Clean-up Program uses local fishing boats to travel along the coastline of Galapagos collecting trash.