The Galapagos Islands on the Pacific Ocean are well-known for the distinctive and self-supporting habitat that contains thousands of species of plants and animals indigenous to the area, thanks to being almost 1,000 miles away from any land mass.
The Galapagos Islands is made up of about nineteen volcanic islands of varying sizes, the archipelago is probably most-famously identified as Charles Darwin's study island in 1835 for the hypothesis of evolution, The Origin of Species, presented in the 1859.
From 1934 and until 10959 the drive to protect the ecological treasures on the island was at its peek. At this point in time people really began to understand the ecological value of the land and made serious efforts to preserve it. Soon after, the Ecuadorian government and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) gave the region the ultimate protection it needed. They declared 97.5 percent of the island a national park where neither hunting nor pollution should take place. Furthermore, the islands were later labeled as a World Heritage Site and granted Biosphere Reserve by the United Nations.

The 44,000-square-foot oceanic reserve encompassing the islands is the second largest on the planet after the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. It also contains some of the world's most unique and rare aquatic creatures and environments.
Besides the animals and wild life, the islands are also a home to more than 25,000 individuals, not counting the more than 150,000 tourists whom visit the island every year. Its popularity with tourists and would-be residents is potentially dangerous for the rare and fragile ecology of the island. Alarmed by the rate of tourists, the Ecuadorian government and non-profit groups that study the islands have collaborated their efforts in an attempt to create a system that will protect the ecological treasures of the island.
Technological Correspondence
Another preservation organization was also concerned about the high rate of yearly visitors and they wanted to take advantage of technology to solve this matter. Instituto Nacional Galapagos, known as, (INGALA), the main society that was famous for providing special care for the islands, sought to use an identity card that couldn't be counterfeited to control the access to the islands.
The identity cards would greatly assist in controlling local and foreign illegal immigrants on the islands. Under the constitution of Ecuador, Ecuadorians were allowed to live on the islands with a special permission from the government. A lack of this permission would immediately translate to legalizations and fines.
The Ecuadorian government eventually turned to a company called Zebra. It was a card printing and bar code labeling company. The government ended up purchasing four P420i printers for the sake of controlling tourism and making sure that all legal residents have this identification card with them to prove their legitimacy on the island.
The unit was successfully able to meet the security requirements of the islands. The machine was capable of printing on both sides of the card at 300 dpi of full color while generating over a hundred cards per hour.
The identity cards also had a very impressive feature embedded in them during their production, contactless smart card technology. The cards are expected to be issues to all the tourists and residents in the Galapagos Islands. Contactless smart cards have a RFID chip embedded in the card itself. This chip can be scanned by a reader by simply waving the card close to it. This eliminates the need for a complete physical scan
Resident identity cards will contain a number of security features to make it difficult for thieves to counterfeit them. Invisible UV ink, holographic overlay, microtext security, bar code and photograph are some of the security measure used in these cards. On the other hand the tourist cards will not include a picture to facilitate their repeated usage.
As a further security measure, the cards’ data, from both the visitor and resident cards will be saved in a computer database accessible between the islands. This guarantees that information can still be retrieved even if a card is stolen or lost.
In the near future all the residents will be required to have these photo ID cards. Tourists will also be required to provide these cards when needed. These cards will simplify the job of officials by providing vital data about the tourists by a single swipe. The cards will have records about which islands the tourists are going to, their passport number, how long they are allowed to stay and their departure date.
The main reason that the government chose this category of security technology is because of the cards’ ability to be used in any location in the secure/offline mode and the database that integrates into the cards.
Furthermore, the communication networks are not that good for communication between he islands and that includes online communication systems, contactless smart cards provided the solution. The identity chip card is was one of the more popular cards that could be used in an offline environment with the information being transmitted in massive amounts.
Another advantage of choosing contactless smart identity cards over many other security technologies because this particular technology was less likely to be spoiled by tourists who loved to walk on the beach and could easily get the cards wet. Not to mention that unlike magnetic stripe cards, contactless smart identity cards cannot be demagnetized.
Two security companies, Nankervis' along with SmartKard, were successful in developing a software that could produce and read the identity cards while managing the flow of passengers in the airports of Ecuador and Galapagos Islands.
The Outcome
Visitors will eventually return the cards when they depart the country, however, the residents are expected to have their cards present as long as they are in the country. Residents must display their identification cards when leaving or entering the islands, this will become particularly important if they decide to take advantage of the reduced airfares offered to authorized citizens. By displaying their cards whenever they enter or exit the country individuals can not longer cheat the system by borrowing identification cards from residents and using them to purchase the cheaper airfares.
This security project has strong support from the United Nations, World Wildlife Fund and other organizations. Efforts are undergoing to implement the first step of this massive security program which is to issue the ID cards to all residents of the islands. January will be the time when the identity cards will be distributed to all visitors arriving through the Ecuador airport as an attempt to confirm if they have the permission to visit the islands and how long are they permitted to stay.