The Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment announced on
its website this week that it will be providing support in ensuring
that the development of lands recently allocated for housing in
Puerto Ayora will take place according to the best environmental
standards possible. Up to 1,000 residential
units are expected to be built over the next few years in the "El
Mirador" housing development, located along the main road leading
out of town. Along with other conservation
organizations, including the Charles Darwin Foundation, the
Prince's Foundation will work with local communities to produce an
urban architecture code for a development of over 1000 houses at El
Mirador, Puerto Ayora. The code sets out information on building
codes and energy efficient housing, whilst also considering the
overall impacts of construction on the local eco-system and
communities within the area.
CNH Tours has remarked in the past that current building
standards are maladapted to the environment in Galapagos, which has
a very hot season with intense sunlight, and a cooler season
requiring, in some cases, a bit of indoor heating at night.
Poor building practices result in an excessive reliance on air
conditioning, and poor insulation and use of vegetation for shading
results in very low efficiency in terms of use of
electricity. As most electricity is generated by oil
powered electrical power plants, this oil has to be imported at a
high cost, subsidized by the government of Ecuador, resulting in
even more wastage, and oil spill risks (see the Jessica Oil spill
in January 2001 - in Galapagos).
Water is also scarce, yet most rainwater is left to drain off
rooftops onto the ground, and is lost to human
use. The water in Puerto Ayora is unsafe to
drink, with high E.coli counts (because sewage is simply flushed
into holes the ground) and high salinity (because water is pumped
from below ground, where it mixes with sea water given the high
porosity of the volcanic rock on which Puerto Ayora is built).
So, CNH Tours welcomes this news. There has been
some sensationalist reporting about it in the UK press, indicating
that the development will double the population of Galapagos.
In fact, the development will have no impact on
the population. The people are there already, the
population is growing through natural growth, and through a well
controlled immigration. The land for the "El Mirador"
is already slated for development - the issue is, will it be good
development, or bad development. The demand for housing in
Galapagos is very high, and the Prince's Foundation
involvement will only assure that better building standards are
applied.
For more informaiton, see the Prince's Foundation page
here.
Image from the Prince's Foundation Website
