Politics:

• CDF= $4.9 million
• mission statement: ORGALA recognizes current threats to the environment, and it will combat them with money to fund certain programs such as sensors. It consists of NGOs, increases spending power of combined money, encourages collaberation with govt., remains non-political (will not help fund corruption), promotes environment through natives using education, will fund programs to research, fund programs already in place, get teachers
• executive director is that of the CDF, paid to be director. 2/3 of assembly to vote out the director.
• general assembly: council of scientific expertise AND board of representatives
• scientist meet at monstly basis over phone/satellite, salaries paid by indiv NGOs; requirement: PhD.
• board of repres: either PhD or Jd
• scientists propose action, board accepts or revises; majority neccessary to pass rule
• 1 annual conference in galapagos
• only non-profit, non-detrimental NGOs allowed. Profit orgs can donate, but no power.
• reasons to join: stronger political influence, unity

Environmental Sensors:

• establish a sensor system to study environmental processes
• use data to quantify the question "how well is our island doing?"
• use spectrometry (monitor from air), less invasive; weather stations 5km apart
• ocean: sensors anchored to ensure same location; can also check varying depths
• installation process: neccessarily will disrupt some environment, maintainance practically non-existant
• which specific species will be monitored
• 180 days as baseline (is that long enough?)
• information collected every 2 hrs by wireless

Ideal Village:

• Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs)- regulate fishing, already working in other nations
• moderate tourism, balance out
• power: solar panels on every building with additional energy from biomass, minimize use of petroleum
  • every house required to have at least a certain percentage of their energy from solar cells
• also, change landscape and materialsto insulate better and reduce energy use by 30%
• education neccessary
• currently there are many water issues in the Galapagos: quality and quantity
  • puerto ayora- water from underground, poor quality, lots of leaks in piping, bottled water used for drinking
• waste goes into septic tanks or into sewer system, then goes to aquaticsolar system to be cleaned by bacteria and poured into ground
• dry toilets
• leave cities where they are, just update them to be environmentally better

 

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This web page created by Jill A. Rowehl

Email the author at jillar@mit.edu

Last Edited on Monday, 22-Nov-2004