Ecuador, which owns the archipelago, may soon have to take action against menacing outsiders, realizing foreigners with cameras are every bit as dangerous as those with cutlasses. Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a leftist who prides himself on putting principle before profit, is mulling whether to restrict tourist licenses to the volcanic outcrops, home to tiny penguins, marine iguanas and venerable giant tortoises. Victor Carrion, deputy director of the Galapagos National Park, went one step further, saying Ecuador should rethink its strategy for the islands whose finches inspired British naturalist Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
Internet cafes, trendy hotels and restaurants litter the main port, Puerto Ayora, where scores of tourists in beachwear mingle with blue-footed boobies and gray iguanas, perched on jagged rocks jutting out into the turquoise waters. Pick-up trucks loaded with tourists roar down highways, while bright red crabs cower at the roadside. The Galapagos, 625 miles off Ecuador's coast, are the country's No. 1 visitor attraction. Tourism earned $486 million last year and is the fourth largest source of income after oil, bananas and fishing. The need for cheap labor to build hotels and restaurants and work as cleaners on cruise ships has attracted thousands of migrants from the poor mainland, causing grave environmental problems with animals they import from the Andean highlands. Galapagos park rangers have launched a cull of goats, shooting them down from helicopters, backed up by imported hunting dogs on the ground, after migrants' goats were found to be competing for food with the archipelago's giant tortoises. Rats brought in by ship and pigs brought in by workers from the mainland have also upset the island's delicate balance.
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