For the Prince of Wales, this was probably as good as it gets. An uninhabited island, miles from civilisation, and only a colony of sea lions and a few thousand blue-footed boobies for company.

For the Prince who likes to get away from it all, the scrubby lump of volcanic rock rising out of the Pacific Ocean that is North Seymour Island was, at least for one day, pretty close to heaven on Earth.

Only the international media pack following his every movement, even in the Galápagos Islands, one of the most remote places in the world, served as a reminder that for the heir to the throne, getting away from it all is rarely a simple matter.

The Prince would not have minded, though. Yesterday he was a man with a message — one about preserving a unique, pristine environment and its remarkable wildlife. If the price for getting that message across was being observed as if he were some rare seabird, he was happy to go along with that.

As the Prince and Duchess of Cornwall arrived on North Seymour, after a 20-minute trip in a speedboat from Santa Cruz, he was met by a chorus of some of the traditional greeting calls of the Galápagos — the bark of a sea lion, the whistling of the blue-footed booby, the whooping of the great frigate bird. Only the marine iguana sitting balefully on its rock remained silent; they don’t say much.

There was also one of the most extraordinary sights of the Galápagos — the male frigate courtship ritual of puffing up the loose skin on his chest so that he looks as if he has a giant red balloon stuck on his front.

If it all looked idyllically peaceful, that was only a surface impression. The frigate birds are woefully poor fishermen, because their feathers are not waterproof. Instead they attack the boobies, who are excellent at fishing, to steal their catch. Piracy on the high seas is alive and well in the Galápagos.

Shortly after the royal couple stepped ashore the centuries-old soundtrack to Galápagos life was shattered by the roar of a passenger jet as it came down to land on the neighbouring island of Baltra — an unsubtle symbol of the problems facing the islands as they cope with ever-growing tourist numbers. Last year 173,000 visitors came to the islands, a four-fold increase over the past 20 years. Conservationists last month called for a curb on tourism because it has led to a sharp increase in the construction of hotels and a surge in imports from mainland Ecuador.

The Prince said: “There is a huge challenge — how do you manage tourism and the local economy and \ more people who want to come and live here and work here. Yet \ the absolutely crucial importance of preserving the biodiversity because it is so unique. That is the great dilemma that confronts all of us round the world, not just here. Somehow we have to find a way to preserve and protect vital eco-systems for the future because we all depend on those eco-systems.”

The Prince’s visit to the islands, part of a ten-day tour of South America, also highlights how the standing of the Royal Family has changed. When the Duke of Edinburgh came here in the 1960s he had some steps named after him; this time the only royal to be given a similar honour was the Prince’s elder son, William, who in his absence had a tortoise named after him by his father.

The Prince, who with the Duchess was made the creature’s godparent by its keepers, said: “I think it will be quite fun if he ever comes here to find that there’s a tortoise named after him — I’ll probably get into terrible trouble.”

Tourism presents challenge to conservationists

- An archipelago of 19 islands, 42 islets and at least 26 emergent rocks, 600 miles off Ecuador. Most of the islands formed by summits of volcanoes, some rising 3,000ft from the floor of the Pacific Ocean

- Though there is speculation that the islands were discovered by the Incas, the first documented visit was made by the Bishop of Panama, whose ship was becalmed en route to Peru in 1535. He reported foolishly tame wildlife, among them giant tortoises, “galapagos”

- Charles Darwin visited aboard the Beagle in 1835, noting the evolution of finches and mockingbirds

- In 1959 the Ecuadorean Government set aside 90 per cent of the islands as a national park

- Most species of plants and animals are endemic to the islands, most have at least two subspecies, adapted to suit different islands

- Tourism has boosted visitors numbers, from 4,000 in 1970 to roughly 60,000 per year, presenting challenges for conservationists

- Galapagos Conservancy estimates that three species of reptile and four species of birds are critically endangered, and nearly 60 per cent of the islands plant species are close to extinction, threatened by goats and invasive plants

Source: WWF, Galapagos.org, Times Database

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