The Galapagos Islands are regularly cited as the best dive site in the world and like other forms of tourism, its popularity is increasing year after year. To ensure the conservation of marine ecosystems and avoid changing the behavior of the fauna, requires a strategic plan for monitoring the marine visitor sites.

To ensure the proper functioning of tourism in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park is enacting a number of legal processes, administrative, regulatory and monitorial to update the system, according to the increase in this activity.

	The Galapagos marine life is no less fascinating than the life on the islands.

The Galapagos marine life is no less fascinating than the life on the islands.
In order to minimize the impact of marine ecotourism, and with the growing popularity of this type of tourism, the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park is updating the management and monitoring system of marine visitor sites.

At present there are 79 marine visitor sites, which allow one or more of the following activities, SCUBA diving, snorkeling, kayaking and "panga rides".

In practice, tourist activity is concentrated in about 15 visitor sites, while activities in 6 other sites are still being consulted by the Participatory Management Board. A better management of tourism activity can prevent overloading of existing tourist sites.

On the legal front, there is continuous monitoring of infractions that are found by either the Port Captaincy, the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park (directly or through their own naturalist guides or visitors), the Department of Tourism or the Public Defender of the town. Given the increased tourist activity, there is a need for an effective but simpler system of reporting violations to the Justice Department of the Directorate of the Galapagos National Park, the final entity, which determines the legal course to take. 

	Diving tours will soon have some new regulations, a category of tourist quota and monitoring system.

Moreover, in 2008, a call was made for new places for tourist operations, creating a type of Navigable Dive Tour, effective since 2009.

This update of the administration of public use of the Galapagos Marine Reserve will provide better tools for the regulation of a growing tourism. 

Finally, in January 2008 the first Monitoring Plan for evaluating the impact of ecotourism in the Galapagos Islands, was published, conducted by Priscilla Cubero-Pardo from the INCOFISH Project, with technical assistance from the Charles Darwin Foundation.

This plan is specific to the Galapagos Marine Reserve and reveals the results of the analysis, evaluation and ratification of indicators. Furthermore, it presents the appropriate monitoring protocols for the implementation of each of the indicators.

The study includes a table of indicators for monitoring marine tourism. Although similar in principle to the indicators for monitoring land visitor sites, these indicators are adjusted for the characteristics of marine sites.

It is expected that implementation of this plan in a systematic way justifies, objectively, the proper organization of marine ecotourism in the Galapagos Marine Reserve, so that they are sustainable in the long term, both for marine resources as for the tourism business.

This program has counted on the support of:

The Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands (CDF) is an international non-profit research organization dedicated to providing scientific research, technical assistance and information in order to ensure the success of conservation in Galapagos.

International Strategic Research Project for resource recovery and marine ecosystems.