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November 1997 Can the Galapagos Survive Tourism? By Jessie Graham

 

It is a busy morning on the island of Baltra, as usual. A small plane lands and a new group steps off the plane and squints at the sun. The tourists are easy to spot, laden with cameras, dressed in sturdy outdoor gear. They form a line to enter the enchanted Islands of Galapagos. Mainland Ecuadorians have come here mostly for work, to cash in on the growing tourist industry.

Some of the new visitors will board buses to the small schooners, sail boats or gigantic cruise ships that will be their homes for the next few days. These packages are pricey; some cruises can cost over $3,000 per person for an eight-day trip. Others, on tighter budgets, will stay on land and plan day trips to outlying islands.

Sixty thousand tourists will visit the Galapagos this year, for reasons as varied as their multi-colored clothing. Birders, who have memorized the mating practices of the waved albatross and know their strange, sword fighting dance by heart, long to hear the click of their beaks, which signifies the beginning of the ritual. The birders will search for hours on a hot, dry island just to glimpse the inflated red pouch of the male frigate bird, or the feet of a blue-footed booby. Nature photographers will lug lenses the size of suitcases up Prince Edward's steps onto a brush-covered island just to get close to the famed land iguanas. They will lie down on the ground to capture the faces of multicolored reptiles, closer than they'd ever dreamed to a member of an endangered species. Sea-lovers, snorkelers especially, will swim with flirty, human-friendly sea lions. Kayakers will paddle through mangroves, looking for giant sea tortoises lurking below the tranquil surface. Others want to trace the trajectory of Darwin's theory of evolution, which he developed after leaving this archipelago 330 miles off the coast of Ecuador. Geology-buffs will marvel at the lava formations and still-active volcanoes, and study plate-tectonic theories.

All of them are here to see a world supposedly untouched by humans. On the surface, it seems that animals rule the Galapagos, but of course, many other forces are at play in this remote paradise. Human invaders have been around for years. Indigenous peoples from Latin America are believed to have been the first land mammals to reach the islands. From the 16th century on, European seafarers stopped off on the lava-encrusted islands in search of rest and absconded with giant tortoises for their meals at sea. With them, sailors and tortoise hunters introduced new animals to the islands, such as goats and donkeys which compete with indigenous life and are today one of the greatest threats to many dwindling species.

Human settlers have brought a whole range of other problems too, and their struggle to transform the islands into an environment that can sustain and nurture human life has taken its toll.

Giant Tortoise Extinction

The story of the giant tortoises illustrates the multi-layered impact of humans. Originally, there were 14 subspecies of the Galapagos tortoise; today three of those subspecies are extinct and another has only one remaining survivor, called "Lonesome George." In the 19th and early 20th centuries, human hunters killed over one hundred thousand giant tortoises for meat and oil. Now the "introduced" animals threaten the tortoises. Pigs eat tortoise eggs, rats consume the hatchlings that survive, dogs eat young tortoises, and goats compete for food. In order to maintain the ecosystem and ensure tortoise survival, the Charles Darwin Research Station on the island of Santa Cruz has launched several introduced animal eradication programs. On certain islands, the threat to the tortoise populations has subsided significantly due to the elimination of goats.

Commercial fishing is another threat to the delicate ecosystem, and established restrictions are often violated. The World Wildlife Federation has recently recommended a worldwide ban on commercial fishing in and around the islands, pushing for the waters to be designated protected areas. As any well-heeled North American or European traveler will eagerly tell you, tourism brings local employment and prosperity. The tourist industry is booming with the popularity of vacations that combine relaxation with education and outdoor activities. For those Ecuadorians willing to work long hours and live for weeks at a time without their families, working on a Galapagos tour ship can be lucrative. But the stress of traveling back and forth to the mainland puts a strain on family relations -- many men who work on the cruise ships have brought their families to live in the two cities on the islands. Since 1950, the human population in the few designated towns on the islands has increased dramatically from 1,346 to 13,030 in 1995. The 5,000 human inhabitants of Porta Ayora, a city on the island of Santa Cruz, have left the ecosystem irrevocably altered. In the port, boat oil spreads like rainbows on the surface of the water.

For inhabitants, everything must be imported from the mainland, so shipments constantly come into the harbor. Tourists visit for a taste of town life after a few days at sea and on the animal-ruled islands to see the giant tortoises at the Charles Darwin Research Station and then shop for t-shirts. Plant life, once unique and endemic to the island of Santa Cruz, has been irrevocably altered by the introduction of foreign seeds. Where nothing but cacti once grew, guava trees cut their strong roots, destroying endemic plants. Inland, plowed fields yield neat farms, where fruits grow despite the harsh, inhospitable soil and the dry climate. Humans have shaped this island and have prospered from it at the cost of the ecosystem. Even the World Wildlife Foundation has said that careful management of the tourist industry, with limits on the numbers of visitors, should keep human impact on the ecosystem to a minimum. It is hoped that visits by Northerners, on carefully delineated trails, in highly regulated areas, accompanied by a certified guide, will ensure the preservation of the archipelago -- because personal contact with the animals may yield contributions to the Parque Nacional or the Charles Darwin Research Station.

At the end of another week in the Galapagos, the tourists stand in the waiting room at the airport writing last minute postcards, napping and dreaming of sea lions. With their hundreds of rolls of film, their t-shirts and wood-carved tortoises, they will bring a little bit of an animal world home with them.

Maybe in their lives at home, surrounded by faxes and computer screens, built-in pools and highways, they will close their eyes and remember a swim they took with a sea lion pup. No doubt their lives will be a little bit richer from it. Perhaps they will become financial supporters of preservation projects, and think more about the lives of animals. But, in the end, no one knows if the original inhabitants of the Galapagos can survive the waves of tourists that will continue to flock to the islands every day.

Jessie Graham is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn and swims with sea lions in her dreams.

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