Analysis of the Impacts of Marine Reserves in the Galapagos Islands
By Micki Stewart and James Wilen
ABSTRACT
In 1998, the Ecuadorian government passed the "Special Law" governing management of the Galapagos Islands. The Galapagos have long been recognized as one of the most unique marine ecosystems in the world. They attract about 70,000 tourists each year and landing sites are managed with a complex system designed to keep impacts minimimized. The tourist industry is important to the island economy, employing about one-third of the labor in both direct and indirect capacities. The fishing sector is also important to the Galapagos economy, employing another third of the population in a mostly artisianal industry in the nearshore waters. The Special Law contains major provisions that will have an as-yet unknown impact on the bioeconomic system of the islands. One of the most important and controversial components of the new law is to create a system of no-take marine reserves. These are designed to protect examples of unique underwater habitat and they would benefit science, the dive-based tourist business, and provide other non-consumptive benefits. At issue is how the creation of a marine reserve system will affect the tourist business and the fishing industry. This paper presents a preliminary analysis of possible impacts, using a spatially explicit and dynamic bioeconomic model. The biological model is cast as a discrete and patchy system linked by dispersal and larval transport mechanisms. Fishermen are assumed to have open access to the patches and they exploit them over space and time according to the relative rents expected. The tourist system is also drawn to various marine habitats in a way that may depend upon different spatial characteristics. The two industries interact initially in a competitive open access manner and the spatial equilibrium dissipates both tourist and fishing rents. This setting is used as a baseline with which to compare various provisions of the new Special Law. We analyze how the creation of no-take zones affects the two industries, using several different institutional configurations that might govern entry, from complete open access to licensing and spatial measures.
KEYWORDS: marine reserves, fisheries, ecotourism,
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