Decision 38 COM 7B.83

Galápagos Islands (Ecuador) (N 1bis)

The World Heritage Committee,

1. Having examined Document WHC-14/38.COM/7B,
2. Recalling Decision 36 COM 7B.32, adopted at its 36th session (Saint-Petersburg, 2012),
3. Welcomes the progress achieved by the State Party in implementing the recommendations of the 2010 World Heritage Centre/IUCN reactive monitoring mission;
4. Urges the State Party to sustain its efforts to fully implement all of the recommendations of the 2010 reactive monitoring mission, in particular putting in place the biosecurity infrastructure for the islands, with a particular focus on the requirements to rigorously apply international biosecurity standards both for cargo ships, and for loading and offloading facilities;
5. Notes with concern that despite the reported implementation of a sustainable tourism strategy, visitor numbers continue to increase rapidly, and also urges the State Party to complement a comprehensive tourism strategy with the necessary enforcement of regulatory and monitoring instruments to achieve long-term sustainable tourism for the property as a whole;
6. Also welcomes the State Party efforts to ban sport fishing in the property and strongly encourages it to closely monitoring the regulation to ensure that artisanal experiential fishing remains the only tourist activity involving fishing;
7. Also encourages the State Party to finish and effectively implement its Sustainable Development and Zoning Plan as an instrument to provide integral management of the archipelago and to ensure conservation of its Outstanding Universal Value, and requests the State Party to provide an electronic and three printed copies of the draft revised management plan, including the zoning plans, for review by the World Heritage Centre and IUCN;
8. Also requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 December 2015, an updated report, including a 1-page executive summary, on the state of conservation of the property and the implementation of the above for examination by the World Heritage Committee at its 40th session in 2016.