Bowermaster’s Adventures — The Charles Darwin Research Center

by Jon Bowermaster on

While in the Galapagos filming we ran into an American writer living in Puerto Ayora, the big town on the island of Santa Cruz, researching a book about exactly the same subject of our film – the current state of affairs across the archipelago.

Carol Ann Bassett’s book is just out, published by National Geographic, fittingly titled “Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists and Creationists Battle for Darwin’s Cradle of Evolution,” and it’s a fantastic tutorial for anyone curious about the natural and human health of the island state today.

I was particularly curious about her reportage on Darwin’s initial reaction to the islands that will forever be linked with his theory of evolution.

Like other biographers of Darwin – who first visited in 1835 as a curious but inexperienced 26-year-old, born the same day as Abraham Lincoln – she labels his role as evolutionary mystery solver as “one of the greatest myths of the history of science.” Citing a study by Harvard professor and MacArthur Foundation “genius” Frank Sulloway, the book details how little Darwin actually took away from the Galapagos after his five-week visit. He had “no eureka flashes of enlightenment,” she writes, “it would take decades before his final theory transcended his religious beliefs and his enduring doubts.”

In his book “Voyage of the Beagle” Darwin referenced the Galapagos sparingly; in his “On the Origin of Species,” published twenty years later, he never mentioned the finches – mistakenly thought by many to be the linchpin of his evolutionary theory – and which are named for him.

It took those twenty years between publications for the significance of the Galapagos to sink in on Darwin. For two decades he wrestled with the history of creationism and its relevance to species diversity. In the end, he came down on the right side of the argument (unless of course you are among those who continue to believe the planet is only 6,000 years old and that life as we know it was created in six days). That his name and theory are so inextricably linked with both evolution and the Galapagos is something Darwin could have never predicted. Nor could he have predicted the clash of economics and the environment, which so wrack the place today.

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The Charles Darwin Research Center sits atop a long hill climbing up from Puerto Ayora, on the big island of Santa Cruz. Part of the Charles Darwin Foundation established in 1959 – the lone international research and advisory institution dedicated to exclusively studying the Galapagos – the CDRS is both an archive of historical scientific study and site of various laboratories engaged in today’s most cutting-edge research in the islands. Many of the world’s most-expert Galapganian scientists either have worked here or still do and we’ve walked up the hill to visit with one, marine biologist Alex Hearn … who we find with his hands in a tank, coddling one of the darlings of local marine life, the sea cucumber.

Sitting on a second-story deck overlooking the blue ocean that is his backyard we talk about the impacts of over fishing here. Some highlights:

“You know the Galapagos has a history of over-exploitation that goes way back to the whalers of the sixteenth century. Ever since we’ve had successive waves of boom-bust fisheries. The latest being the sea cucumber which started in the early Nineties as a result of the resource collapsing on the continent followed by a sizable migration of fishers who had already successively depleted the sea cucumber along the coast of Ecuador moving to the islands and hammering the resource here. At the time it was unregulated and there was no way of stopping it because there was no Marine Reserve. By the time the Marine Reserve was created a lot of the damage had already been done. Sometimes we forget that the Marine Reserve management system inherited a lobster resource which had already collapsed in the Eighties, and a sea cucumber resource that had already been heavily fished for ten years ….”

“In terms of coastal fishing, the number of local fishermen — who are the only ones legally allowed to fish here — has nearly tripled during the Nineties, from about 400 to over 1,000. Fishing around the coast has increased dramatically and we haven’t been very successful in managing it. In part because it’s a group with a lot of political power as well as the perception of an immediate need. Since 1998 this local management system has failed to take into account the sustainability of both lobster and sea cucumber. The result is that both are suffering, badly ….”

“When you’re at university or when you’re studying a particular species biologically you’re focused on the species. When you’re looking at the fisheries, the actual biology of the species is the least important thing really, your job becomes more about managing people. Getting them, first of all, to trust that our advice is first and foremost because we are scientists and is focused on sustainability. Our motivation is not about eliminating or prohibiting fishermen. There is a big lack of trust here, partly due to the fact that we’re both a science and conservation organization and carry a fair amount of political power as well. As a result we vote on the system as a conservation sector but we also provide the technical advice, which may sometimes seen as a little bit suspect. Some locals, fishermen, will say ‘You’re providing the advice just to justify your position.’ It can get very complex. It’s about building trust and showing them that the long-term impacts of over fishing and are very difficult to prove but that we still need to make changes now ….”

“Working in Galapagos is like a rollercoaster. There are times when it’s immensely frustrating and there are times when it’s just paradise. To tell the truth, for me, as a young scientist coming to Galapagos straight out of university, to be able to develop lines of research, to be able to publish, to be able to take the research from the sea to the government and follow that entire process is something you really don’t get in many other places. On a personal level I am eternally grateful for Galapagos. Besides, Galapagos also gave me a wife and a baby. So what can I say?”

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Bowermaster’s Adventures — Welcome to the Galapagos!

by Jon Bowermaster on

Often by the time the mainstream media runs big stories about an environmental battle it’s often too late. I’ve seen it up-close dozens of times during the past couple decades and have reported so many David-versus-Goliath stories – usually positing good-hearted indigenous peoples and international environmental groups against greedy, monolithic utility companies and strong-arming government agents – that the stories have almost become fill-in-the-blanks. (Just change the name of the indigenous tribe, the utility company and the country and the story – and outcome – are usually very similar.)
Yet despite ominous recent headlines in the Wall Street Journal (“Galapagos Under Siege“), the Times (“Can Darwin’s Lab Survive Success?“) and UK’s Independent (“Tourism, Over-Population and Overfishing Have Become the Blight of the Galapagos“), I happen to believe that the Ecuadorian archipelago will survive (even if more and more of its endemic creatures may not) and flourish. In some respects, as the standard bearer for the planet’s evolutionary history, it simply must. As Alex Hearn, a marine biologist with the Charles Darwin Research Center on Santa Cruz Island told us about the Galapagos future, “if we can’t get it right here, where can we?” A microcosm of the planet’s wildlife, if the Galapagos loses its wildness it will feel like the end is near for the rest of our wild places.


Given my interest in man’s relationship with the sea, it was hard not to go to the Galapagos for a first-hand look at exactly how we are impacting this once truly special place. Spurred by comments by the Ecuadorian president (“the Galapagos are at great risk”) and UNESCO, which first declared the Galapagos a world heritage site and has now put it on an “in danger” list, we took video cameras and digital recorders and came back with a story not so much about the incredible biodiversity of its wildlife but about how man is wrestling with his presence there.

The film we’ve made – “What Would Darwin Think?” – is nearly complete; in advance of that I wanted to share some of the stories, photos and videos brought back from several weeks of conversations and poking around.
According to a recent report by the Darwin Foundation, “Galápagos at Risk” the islands’ crisis does not just stem from an unprecedented rise in tourism, but also from a change in the marketplace. “Early tourism in the Galápagos was characterized by nature-loving tourists,” the report said, seeking “to learn about Darwin and see the amazing species that helped him to develop his theory of evolution.” It noted that these guests were “easily accommodated by smaller, locally owned tour operators.”
But, the study continued, the market expanded to include “eco-tourists,” who also like to visit places like Machu Picchu, the Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, Easter Island and the Great Barrier Reef. These tourists are “often more selective in terms of required comfort and is better served by multinational tour operators,” the report said.
A consequence has been that local owners cannot compete with the foreign-run companies doing business in the Galápagos. Of the $418 million generated by tourism annually, only $63 million is estimated to enter the local economy. And of the 80 tourism boats allowed to operate in the Galápagos, only about 40 percent are locally owned.
“We have to think about the people and not just the plants and animals, or it will all collapse,” the report concluded.

Galapagos sea tortoise “Lonesome George” is lonesome no more

by Kraig Becker on

Visitors to the Galapagos have no doubt caught a glimpse of one of the islands’ more famous inhabitants, a very rare sea turtle that is believed to be the last of his subspecies, and the rarest creature on Earth, who was affectionately dubbed Lonesome George more than three decades ago, when he was first brought to the his current home.

The Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, who weighs nearly 200 pounds, has never mated, and his species is in danger of disappearing completely when George finally passes on. But earlier this week it was announced that George has found a mate at last (two in fact!) and he may be a father sometime in the next 120 days.

George has recently been shacking up with two females of a different subspecies, and last week his handlers discovered five perfect eggs in the sea tortoise pen. They were carefully removed, weighed, and put into an incubator, where they will be watched carefully over the next 16 weeks until they hatch.

For the Pinta Island Giant Tortoise, this may be a glimmer of hope of salvaging the species from the brink of extinction. Although George is estimated to be about 90 years old, he is just now entering his sexual prime, and the species can live to be 150. That means he has the chance to father a few more children in the decades ahead, and perhaps we’ll see more of his species returning to the Galapagos.

Everglades to be put back on U.N. endangered list?

by Kraig Becker on

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar is meeting with a task force charged with overseeing the restoration of the Florida Everglades this week. He intends to tell them that the Obama administration will ask the United Nations World Heritage Committee to put the national park back on its endangered list when the committee meet in Spain this week.

Two years ago, in what has been viewed as a controversial decision, the Bush administration requested that the U.N. remove the Everglades from the list. At the time, the Department of the Interior defended the decision by citing progress being made in protecting the region and the species that lived there, despite the fact that the restoration program had failed to meet milestones, and was billions over budget.

The current administration believes restoring the Everglades National Park to the list of endangered places will send a strong signal to environmentalists that they are committed to the protecting the environment. If restored to the list, the park will join the Galapagos Islands, the Old City of Jerusalem and Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley as the other World Heritage Sites considered to be in danger. The Everglades were originally added to the list back in 1993 when the area was damaged by Hurricane Andrew and the effects of prolonged exposure to water pollution became known.

Despite the issues effecting the park, the Everglades remains a popular tourist destination. There are more than 156 miles of canoe/kayak and hiking trails, with 47 designated campsites, inside the 2500 square miles of subtropical forest that define the parks boundaries. The Park Service reports that over one million visitors experience the Everglades each year.

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Ecoventura vows to eliminate fossil fuels

by Sean McLachlan on

Environmental tour company Ecoventura has promised to stop using fossil fuels on its vessels by 2015. Ecoventura runs environmentally conscious boat tours to the Galapagos Islands, a unique ecosystem that is under threat by climate change and tourism.

“The Galapagos Islands rank right up there with the Amazon and the Serengeti as one of the richest and best known, yet fragile and threatened, ecosystems in the world. Now, the Ecuadoran government is looking to a range of alternative energy resources to make sure it stays that way,” reports Triple Pundit, a leading website on responsible business practices.

“The Ecuadoran government has turned to wind and solar power as a means of realizing its goals. Along with a range of international aid organizations and private sector businesses, it’s working to eliminate the use of fossil fuels on the Galapagos Islands by 2015.”

One of Ecoventura’s four yachts, the M/Y ERIC, is equipped with solar panels and wind turbines to replace some of its diesel consumption. The company hopes to have these on all its yachts by 2011.

In addition to reducing fossil fuels, Ecoventura donates to carbon-offsetting programs, prompting NativeEnergy to award it with a “Cool Business Certificate” last month. NativeEnergy hosts numerous projects aimed at reducing carbon emissions; the one Ecoventura supports is the Cascade Sierra Solutions Trucking Project, which works to make trucks more fuel-efficient and therefore reduce their carbon emissions.

Ecoventura estimates they have offset slightly more than 4,000 tons of CO2 emissions this year, and hopes to offset more with its renewable energy plan for its boats.

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