Galapagos Green Airport started its operations

Digital image designing a green airport terminal located in Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands. (Courtesy of America Corporation)

After a year of construction, the Ecological Airport started its operations yeserday morning in the Galapagos Islands, which, it is estimated, will receive between 800 and 1,000 passengers daily.

Despite that the last details aren’t finished yet; it is expected to use all excess material from the old airport as stone or wood, and thereby reuse the existing material to maximum.

Ezequiel Barrenechea, Principal of the America Corporation for Latin American and the Caribbean, and President of the Galapagos’ Airport, said that with the use of solar energy, water reuse and the better use of winds, among other environmental innovations supported in technology, Galapagos will become the main place in the world where an ecological airport operates.

“It is the first and only, for now, truly green and certified by the LEED Gold” confirmed Barrenechea, referring to the rating system for sustainable buildings developed by the Green Building Council of America.

The building of the terminal will be officially opened the first week of February 2013.  The track and the platform are expected to be ready in August. Construction of this terminal will cost $24 million.

“(…) it’s a World Natural Heritage, and icon as far for the protection of nature is concerned,” said Barrenechea.