What Scubagirlz is saying is correct only the aggressor and ph boats are going to wolf and darwin for the time being. As for the scuba iguana I looked into a land based option in case my trip doesn't work out and this is what I got back from them.....This is from july 26th
"We received confirmation today that the live aboards won’t be allowed to offer diving itinerary; you’ll find attached a document form one of the co owners of Scuba Iguana explaining the context of the situation."
Here is the letter....
"This is Jack Nelson writing to you. I am one of the partners in Scuba Iguana. I have worked in tourism in Galápagos since 1967. I have been very active in much of the process of writing the legal framework for life and business in the islands, and can assure you that it is a bewildering array of vagaries, ambiguities, contradictions and legal voids. Historically, there has always been an ebb and flow of corruption in authorities and the establishment of legal precedent and custom. Sometimes more, sometimes less. Aside from that, typically the bureaucratic authorities have no experience or interest in understanding the realities of business, and expect to dictate according to their interpretations. Bureaucracies have wide discretionary powers. Any possible explanations of this shifting playing field are necessarily simplified.
It is always difficult to explain to someone from far away, why things happen like they do here. Often I think of the official decision process like it is a Mexican Piñata. Give it a whack and see what falls out.
Scuba diving has been part of the business for the “Daphne†yacht operations for as long as I can remember. IMAX used the “Daphne†as the dive base and mother ship for the famous Galápagos movie. “Daphne†is not an improvised start-up.
The “Ley Orgánica para la Conservación y Desarrollo Sustentable de la Provincia de Galápagos†(LOREG) translated roughly as “Special Law for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Province of Galápagos†has specific language protecting the acquired rights of tourism operations existing before the LOREG. These articles affirm the Constitutional protections of acquired rights, as no law can be retroactive. This affirmation written into the LOREG was fought for by us Galápagos residents, as the Constitution had already been reformed to allow restriction of certain rights if necessary to protect the natural environment.
Subsequent to the LOREG is the RETANP, basically the Tourism Regulation. The original draft of the RETANP was written by Galápagos residents, a consensus very carefully worked out to comply with higher laws, without ambiguities or contradictions or bad grammar or technical inconsistencies, and designed to implement the idea that the local population must be involved in the tourism business in order that we would see conservation to be in our interest. It included the start of the mechanism for moving fishermen into tourism. Unfortunately, that document by law had to be vetted and approved by the Ministry of Environment and signed by the President. Nine months later we received a much modified mess, already signed into law. Four years later it is still floundering, only partially applicable. It is a bad regulation, causing rather than resolving conflict among the Park, existing operators, the fishermen, and the burgeoning population. The latest Director of the National Park has gone on a warpath of arbitrary application of the RETANP, interpreting willy-nilly as she goes. Effectively, each inhabited island has a different mix of regulation, according to the local political weight of the Park and the animosity and activism of the population.
One element in the socio-political mix has been the poorly controlled expansion of unsustainable fisheries since around 1993. As a group, the fishermen have formed a political party which dominated the islands’ institutions under the Presidency of Lucio Gutierrez, who was overthrown for egregious corruption. This party came into being after the fishermen had already gained many concessions by intimidation, after looting Park offices on Isabela and other similar actions. The theorists of the National Park and supporting environmentalist groups have hit on the idea of changing the fishermen into tourist operators, and since many of them are already empirically experienced hookah divers (with a shockingly high accident and mortality rate) it seemed a brilliant notion to set aside scuba operations for them. This cleaving of the business is supposedly justified by the lack of a separate diving regulation.
One of the first decrees of our new President Rafael Correa (inaugurated in January) was to recognize the chaos and emergency here, brought on by years of mismanagement and special interest groups. Correa is a passionate and forceful and even capricious character. He demands quick action. Even increasing the pressure is the subsequent UNESCO declaration of Galápagos as an Endangered Human Heritage. This is the context of the National Park abrogation of contracts, without consideration of the affected clients and businesses"
