10/29/2021: Ecuador announces showcase project for the Galapagos Islands

A rare and completely white penguin has been discovered on the Galapagos Islands, part of Ecuador (Photo: Dirección del Parque Nacional Galápagos)

Ecuador's President Guillermo Lasso will announce a flagship project for the iconic Galapagos Islands at the COP26 summit and hold a four-way meeting with US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. "Ecuador plans to make an important international announcement in Glasgow that has to do with our country's contribution to climate change and the environment," the head of state said in an interview, without giving details of the project for the popularly known "haunted islands" to name. The UN Climate Change Conference 2021 (COP 26) is the 26th UN climate conference. Originally planned as the UN Climate Change Conference 2020, 2COP 262 was planned for November 2020 in Glasgow, Scotland, but was postponed to the time window from October 31 to November 12, 2021 in April 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Galapagos Islands, about 1,000 kilometers west of mainland Ecuador, are one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world and all sorts of conservation initiatives have been considered in the past. One of them was a multi-billion dollar environmental debt swap to create a new protected area around the archipelago, which was intended to expand fishing quotas through negotiations between all parties involved. When asked about his announced plan, Lasso prefers "not to speak from a financial point of view" because he says he has "analyzed some of these proposals" that he thinks are "interesting", although he believes that that “Ecuador as a state should look for much more productive and advantageous alternatives”.

He will explain his concept during the summit and at a parallel meeting with US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. "The four of us will have a conversation about environmental issues, the circular economy and issues where Ecuador, as a small country but with very clear commitments in terms of ecological change, can engage in the world," he said. The Ecuadorian President is traveling to Madrid today (29th) and, after a short stopover, will travel to Glasgow on Sunday for the climate summit, where he will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Mauricio Montalvo and Minister for Environment, Water and Ecological Conversion, Gustavo Manrique. (Source: latina-press.com)