Galapagos Marine Reserve Case Study

itle: The Galapagos Marine Reserve: how co-managing can arise conflicts and unsuccessful.
Background: Located in the Pacific Ocean, the Galapagos Archipelago is about 1000 kilometers (km) from mainland Ecuador. It is comprised of 19 islands and 107 islets, with a total land area of about 8000 km (Baine et al.,2007). The exceptional nature of the Galapagos archipelago is given by its position, with three major oceans current converging together (Fig.2): a warm water stream coming from Panama, a cooler stream coming from Humboldt and the upwelling sub-equatorial current, with highly prolific cold waters (Hearn, 2008). The archipelago hosts unique organisms including tropical, temperate and sub-Antarctic animals (Baine et al., 2007). The isolated
The Galapagos was acknowledged as a National Park in 1959, a World Heritage Site in 1978 and it was recognized Biosphere Reserve in 1985 (Martinez, 2001). Due to the collapse of Ecuador fisheries, new pressure was exercised upon the Galapagos sea cucumber fishery. In the 1990’s, the sea cucumber, Isostichopus fuscus or ‘pepino’, became increasingly exploited due to its commercial value for artisan fisherman (Martinez, 2000). I. fuscus is commonly found in the Eastern Pacific and used to be the most copious invertebrate in the Galapagos Archipelago (Wellington, 1974). The cucumber fishery settled in mainland Ecuador in 1989, was founded by Asian entrepreneurs. After the commercial extinction of I. fuscus occurred in Ecuador, fishers initiated the activity in the Galapagos in 1991 (Camhi, 1995). Sea cucumber extraction rapidly became the most lucrative fishing activity in the Archipelago, due to its economical and nutritional importance (Murillo et al., 2004). Along with the fishery pressure and population growth, the number of tourists landing on the islands intensely increased during the 1980s
An Ecosystem-based spatial management (EBSM) method was adopted in the GMR, generating the implementation of marine zoning (Castrejón and Charles, 2013). A common consensus in 2000 led to the Provisional Zonation Scheme which divided the GMR into three main areas:multiple-use zone, limited-use zone and port-zone(Fig.3) (Paladines and Chuenpagdee, 2015). The GMR was managed between the Participatory Management board (PMB) known as La Junta, the local executive forum including active stakeholders from the sea cucumber fisheries and the Interinstitutional Management Authority (IMA), including stakeholders at the national government level (Fig.4). Since the establishment of the GMR, each site was monitored using a specific circular sweep transect developed for holothurians before and after the fishing seasons, in order to define the effect of fishery activities and recovering rate of I. fuscus (Richmond and Martínez, 1993). The data gained was distributed and analysed amongst the multi- stakeholders, and eventually given to the IMA, who later decided on the total allowable catch (TAC) and ultimate fishing regulation. A landing size was introduced with a minimum of 20 cm for fresh organisms and 6 cm for dried ones. (Toral-Granda and Martinez, 2008). Also, The Bolivar Channel was identified as nursery ground and remained closed to