THE Gal谩pagos Islands are wrapped in the cotton wool of conservation. Few places are protected by as many environmental restrictions as the archipelago where Charles Darwin first conceived the idea of evolution through natural selection. These 鈥渆nchanted isles鈥� are biologically unique. Eleven of the original 14 or 15 subspecies of giant tortoises remain. Here too are the world鈥檚 only sea lizard (the marine iguana), the flightless cormorant, a nocturnal gull and 13 native finches.
But people live here too, and they are fighting the conservationists every inch of the way. The Gal谩pagos are home to 14 000 islanders who, together with thousands of migrants from mainland Ecuador, want to exploit the islands鈥� natural resources. Early this month 鈥� for the third time in two years 鈥� armed protesters besieged scientists at the islands鈥� research station, demanding that they be allowed to fish the coastal waters and build hotels. On 16 September, the two-week-long siege was lifted after government officials made some concessions to islanders, including an agreement that all new tour guides will be island residents. But conservationists were not consulted and the issue is far from resolved.
Can people and wildlife find a way to live together on the Gal谩pagos? Conservationists from outside view the crisis with foreboding. They believe the impasse underlines growing evidence of the failure of traditional conservation policies, based on fencing off the most biologically interesting parts of the planet.
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The Gal谩pagos comprise 12 large volcanic islands and dozens of smaller ones set in the Pacific Ocean 800 kilometres west of Ecuador. They emerged from the ocean some 3 million years ago. Since then they have gradually accumulated a remarkable collection of flora and fauna. In 1961, a century after Darwin鈥檚 visit, scientists persuaded the government of Ecuador to designate most of the islands as a national park. The Charles Darwin Research Station was established in 1964 to study the islands鈥� many unique species and breed some threatened ones in captivity. And in 1986, 70 000 square kilometres of ocean around the Gal谩pagos became the second largest marine reserve in the world.
When the conservationists first moved in, the islands had a total population less than that of an average British village. But now every flight from mainland Ecuador brings more immigrants. 鈥淎 population of 4000 in 1980 has soared to 14 000 today, doubling every seven years,鈥� says Clive Wicks from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). 鈥淕al谩pagos鈥檚 major problem today is an invasion of people.鈥� They come because the mainland is poor, while the natural resources of the Gal谩pagos make them potentially rich. These natural wonders attract some 50 000 tourists each year. Most arrive on cruise ships, but increasing numbers are staying in island hotels. 鈥淭he tourists are becoming a menace,鈥� says Wicks, not because of the damage they do personally, but because their money is such a powerful magnet.
But the trigger for the latest unrest lies not on the islands, but in the seas around them. With stocks off mainland Ecuador declining through overfishing, the sea around the Gal谩pagos is the country鈥檚 last great fishery. Or it would be if most of it were not protected as part of the Gal谩pagos marine reserve.
Since the early 1990s, fishermen have been flocking to the Gal谩pagos with their families to dive for the sea cucumber, a tasty echinoderm that lives in huge numbers on the seabed (鈥淭he grub and the Gal谩pagos鈥�, New 杏吧原创, 11 December 1993). Fishing has been most intense in the remote Bolivar Channel between Isabela Island and the uninhabited and largely pristine Fernandina.
But in 1992 the government moved to ban sea cucumber fishing because it breached the rules of the marine reserve. The result was open warfare between conservationists and fishermen. The following year, angry fishermen, deprived of their livelihood, barricaded the research station in Puerto Ayora, the largest town in the Gal谩pagos. Last year, with international film crews on the islands to record major brush fires, islanders hacked 86 giant tortoises to death on Isabela Island.
Under pressure, Ecuadorian President Sixto Dur谩n Ball茅n acceded to the fishermen鈥檚 demands and granted a three-month long 鈥渆xperimental fishery鈥� with a maximum harvest of 550 000 sea cucumbers, beginning in October 1994. The aim was to devise a 鈥渟ustainable鈥� fishery that would provide an income for the fishermen while protecting the species. The result was pandemonium.
Within weeks, some 800 fishermen, many of them without permits, had plundered an estimated 7 million sea cucumbers from the waters of the Gal谩pagos. Many landed illegally on islands such as Fernandina, taking ashore goats and chickens, and cutting mangrove swamps for firewood to boil their catch before selling it to Japanese and Korean ships waiting offshore.
Sea cucumbers were not the only targets. According to Macarena Green, an Ecuadorian biologist who works on the islands, the divers also collected sea horses, snails, sea urchins and black coral. They sent a consignment of sea lion penises to Japan, where they were to be tried out as a new aphrodisiac. 鈥淭he Japanese buyer paid $50 for each penis,鈥� says Green.
Faced with an international outcry from conservationists, the President called off the experimental fishery a month early and announced that new scientific studies would have to be carried out before any resumption was permitted. The fishermen reacted by once again taking over the offices of the national park and research station, holding staff hostage and sinking the station鈥檚 boat. 鈥淭hey threatened to kill all the tortoises in captivity at the station, and to start fires on little islands,鈥� says Green.
In an effort to defuse the crisis, the President asked his civil servants to draft a new conservation law for the Gal谩pagos. But he was upstaged last month by the representative for the Gal谩pagos, Eduardo Veliz, who abruptly introduced his own 鈥渃onservation bill鈥� for the islands to Ecuador鈥檚 National Congress. It outraged conservationists. According to Julian Fitter, chairman of the British-based Gal谩pagos Conservation Trust, 鈥渋t would have ruined the islands for both tourism and science鈥�. If passed, the bill would have opened up the islands, including their fisheries, to commercial exploitation, and would have required all tourists to spend at least one night on the islands, threatening a massive growth in hotel construction.
The bill shrewdly appealed to islanders by offering to double the pay of many public officials and servants, and it was swiftly passed by the National Congress before being vetoed by the President early this month. The result was predictable: riots and the threat of a wider insurrection headed by Veliz (This Week, 16 September).
This cycle of conflict, with each side in turn winning the President鈥檚 ear, shows no sign of ending. With the next sea cucumber hunting season due to start in a few days, conservationists are in no mood to moderate their protection laws. Craig MacFarland, president of the Charles Darwin Foundation, which runs the research station, said this year that 鈥渞eopening the fishery will overturn the management plan for the reserve鈥�. The plan allows some traditional fishing, but most of the sea cucumbers are in parts designated for total protection.
Alien activity
鈥淥ur people do not have the education to understand that if they fish all sizes and ages of certain species, eventually they won鈥檛 have any,鈥� says Green. 鈥淭hey don鈥檛 understand what it means to use a resource intelligently.鈥� Staff at the research station have spent 30 years attempting to improve the environmental education of islanders. Clearly they have failed. In fact, they may even have reinforced the view among islanders that conservation is an alien activity.
The stance taken by conservationists during the present crisis only serves to strengthen that view. Their language is confrontational 鈥� islanders are 鈥渋nsurrectionists鈥� and 鈥渆xtremists鈥� who have been 鈥渋ncited鈥� by their democratic representatives. To cap it all, some conservationists are even calling for a halt to immigration from mainland Ecuador.
This tone is in marked contrast with thinking among a new generation of conservationists who believe that wildlife protection can only work with the consent of local people. The WWF, for example, now sanctions timber felling and even the hunting of endangered species such as manatee by villagers in its ecological reserves in the Amazon. In southern Africa many conservationists believe the Kruger National Park, until 1926 the homeland of the Mhinga people, should be handed back.
Gal谩pagos conservationists would not consider such extreme measures. But to protect a unique ecosystem they have no choice but to make peace with the islanders, and that will mean compromise. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 take just a biological view,鈥� says Wicks from the WWF 鈥淵ou have to understand the social problems.鈥�