Lori Gorczynski

Chapter 2

The Ecuadorian Context

Ecuador is a great place to study environmental issues because it is similar to other Latin

American and Carribbean (LAC) countries and can represent LAC as a whole in terms of

socioeconomics. Transnational funding for the environment has fluctuated over time in

Ecuador, which allows Lewis to assess the affects of funding on environmental issues. In

addition, it is simply unique in terms of geography and biodiversity.

The four regions that make up Ecuador include the Galapagos Islands, the coast (la

costa), the Andes (la sierra), and the Amazon (el oriente, the east, also called la selva, the

jungle). The Capital, Quito, is located in the Andes and sit among active volcanoes, the coast

contains Guayaquil, the largest city, and the Amazon is rich in petroleum and indigenous tribes.

The Galapagos is a famous ecotourism destination, which needs to be managed carefully. All

regions are unique and have their own environmental issues to face.

In the 1980s Ecuador was labeled as one of the worlds hotspots. Myers described

biodiversity hotspots as areas that feature exceptional concentrations of species with

exceptional levels of endemism, and that face exceptional degrees of threat. (Myers, 1988).

Most places that fall under this category are tropical rainforests, which are very diverse in plant

and animal species but also threatened by the logging, farming, and mining industry. The small

country of Ecuador contains 17 percent of the worlds bird species and 10 percent of plant

species, all in 0.2 percent of the Earths land area, making it one of the megadiverse nations of
the world. Unfortunately, is it also under threat and has the highest deforestation rate in South

America.

Ecuadors economy is based on exports. Petroleum is the number one export of

Ecuador, most of which is exported to the United States. Petroleum extraction polluted the land

and air, killed fish, polluted water systems, had negative health effects on the indigenous tribes,

and assisted the migration to colonize the Amazon. These negative effects often occurred in

places that were protected. Nonetheless, rules were bent and protected areas such as Yasuni

Nacional Park, Cuyabeno Fauna Reserve, and the Biological Reserve Limoncocha were sites of

oil extraction. Although there were environmental consequences of oil extraction, Ecuadors

income rose, infrastructure was developed, investments in education and health were made,

illiteracy declined, and more of the population had access to safe water and electricity.

Bananas are Ecuadors second leading export (in relation to dollars earned), followed by

shrimp, canned fish, flowers, cacao, and coffee and its derivatives. Banana, coffee, and cacao

plantations have taken over the coastal regions and contribute to deforestation and soil

erosion. Mangrove forests have been destroyed due to the shrimp industry, and the traditional

fishermen in the area are threatened or driven away. Health problems also occur due to the

pesticides used to produce cut flowers. The Galapagos faces potential risk due to the thousands

of tourists that visit. Ecuadors chief imports and economic drivers are also the root causes of

environmental degradation and and main reasons for social movement activity.

Reflection

According to Conservation International (CI), a region qualifies as a biodiversity hotspot

if it has at least 1,500 endemic vascular plants and 30% or less of its original, natural vegetation.
This deductive process of outlining the 34 biodiversity hotspots is very similar to Myers original

definition of a hotspot in 1988. CIs mission goes beyond the protection of hotspots, because

they believe that for humanity to survive and thrive that the protection of nature must be a

fundamental part of society. According to CI, Despite compromising 2.3% of Earths land

surface, forests, wetlands, and other ecosystems in hotspots account for 35% of the

ecosystem services that vulnerable human populations depend on (2017).

CIs statement is congruent with the fact that most of the biologically diverse countries

are the ones with economic problems. Short term incentives such as food and materials

outweigh long-term stability such such as conservation and sustainability. This is known as one

of the great ironies of conservation, and is what makes funding from the Global North so

important. (Fisher and Christopher, 2006). Russell Mittermeier, president of CI, stated, In total,

more than $750 million is estimated to have been devoted to saving hotspots over the last 15

years, perhaps the largest financial investment in any single conservation strategy

(Conservation International, 2017).

As a future tourist to the Galapagos, I cant help but feel bad being an ecotourist. The

World Conservation Union defines ecotourism as environmentally responsible travel and

visitation to relatively undisturbed natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature that

promotes conservation, has low visitor impact, and provides for beneficially active socio

economic involvement of local population (Self and Haynes, 2010). A main point of ecotourism

is to educate travelers about the importance of conservation and the environment, but that

sometimes comes as the cost of a pristine place. In order to accommodate ecotourists, the

Galapagos increased the number of airports from one to three, created new roads, and had to
clear land to create new infrastructure and local development. In the end, tourism can never be

truly green. As of now I believe the benefits of ecotourism outweigh the costs, but as more

and more people visit there is no way to completely stop all environmental degradation. There

is a thin line between ecotourism and disrupting the environment, but if managed properly it

should be beneficial to both.

 References

Conservation International (2017). Retrieved September 13, 2017, from

http://www.conservation.org/How/Pages/Hotspots.aspx

Fisher, B., & Christopher, T. (2006, August 17). Poverty and biodiversity: Measuring the

overlap of human poverty and the biodiversity hotspots. Retrieved September 13, 2017, from

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800906002916

Myers, Norman. Threatened Biotas: Hot Spots in Tropical Forests. The

Environmentalist, vol. 8, no. 3, Sept. 1988, pp. 187208., doi:10.1007/bf02240252.

Self, D. R., & Bell-Haynes, J. (2010). Marketing tourism in the Galapagos islands:

Ecotourism or greenwashing? The International Business & Economics Research Journal, 9(6),

111-125.