Baltÿa, the giant Galapagos tortoise named by the EU

Baltÿa is the name that a giant tortoise received this Thursday. Galapagos barely a year old, baptized and sponsored by the commissioner of EnvironmentOceans and Fisheries European Union (EU)the Lithuanian Virginijus Sinkevicius.

As part of his tour of South America, which included visits to Paraguay, Bolivia and Ecuador, Sinkevicius arrived this Thursday at the Ecuadorian Galapagos archipelago to verify that microplastic pollution affects even one of the best preserved marine reserves on the planet.

On the island of Santa Cruz, he also visited a school built under a sustainable buildings project of the French Development Agency (AFD) and was granted the honor of naming one of the baby turtles from the Fausto Llerena Turtle Breeding Center , which is located on the premises of the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF).

The chelonian sponsored by Sinkevicius is the 20th specimen born in 2023 of the ‘chelonoidis darwini’ species, endemic to Santiago, one of the thirteen islands that make up this archipelago located about a thousand kilometers west of the continental coasts of Ecuador.

In honor of the Baltic Sea

The former Lithuanian Minister of Economy and Innovation named the turtle Baltÿa in honor of the Baltic Sea, where he seeks to change the dynamics to restore that sea in northern Europe, heavily polluted by the “eutrophication” and where around 300,000 tons of weapons and ammunition from World War II lie.

And the giant tortoises of the Galapagos have not escaped plastic pollution, since a recent study published last year revealed that the giant tortoises of Santa Cruz Island, the most populated in the archipelago with about 18,000 inhabitants, are ingesting plastic. in your diet.

The results showed that giant tortoises more frequently consume waste produced by human activity in areas intervened by humans, such as in the west of Santa Cruz, while, in protected areas, exposure to this waste is almost zero.

The Minister of Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador, Sade Fritschi, the director of the Galapagos National Park, Arturo Izurieta, and the EU ambassador in Ecuador, Charles-Michel Geurts, also participated in Baltÿa’s sponsorship and baptism.

The turtle will continue its growth in the hatchery until it is two years old, and then will be introduced into its natural habitat, as has been done with tens of thousands of specimens in recent decades, with the aim of recovering the populations of this species cataloged in critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Cleaning microplastics

Before this symbolic event, where Sinkevicius received a wooden statuette of a giant Galapagos tortoise, the EU commissioner participated in a microplastic cleaning demonstration in Tortuga Bay, one of the most iconic and emblematic beaches of the Galapagos.

There, by sifting the fine white sand on which dozens of iguanas rest, he verified that there are small particles of plastic of different types, brought there by the sea.

For this reason, he reiterated his call to carry out a Global Treaty on Plastic to regulate its uses and limit this type of pollution that causes it to end up as part of the diet of marine species.

Focused on protecting forests and oceans

Since 1978, the Galapagos, which in the 19th century led the British scientist Charles Darwin to develop his theory of the selection and natural evolution of species, have been declared by UNESCO as a natural heritage of humanity.

Sinkevicius arrived at this enclave on his second day of visit to Ecuador, after the first focused in Quito on explaining the new regulation that the EU will have starting in December of this year to import products with full guarantee that they are free of deforestation. .

Likewise, he led the launch of Ukumari, a joint cooperation initiative of six EU member states (Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Italy and Hungary) that includes at least US$200 million to stop deforestation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

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