A typical paragraph from a tourist brochure on the Galapagos Islands might invite the traveler to snorkel with friendly sea lions, walk among blue-footed boobies, marvel at marine iguanas, and get acquainted with six-hundred-pound tortoises. Tourists are tempted to "experience the enchanted Isles, Darwin's showcase of evolution," and so forth. Beyond description of the amazing animals and other-worldly landscapes, little mention if any would be made of another striking feature of the mysterious islands--the Galapaguenos, the people of Galapagos.
This omission is not surprising; after all, the tourist industry sells wildlife adventure, not cultural exchange. During the year I worked at the Charles Darwin Research Station, the vast majority of visitors expressed surprise at finding people and towns on the islands.
Isolated six hundred miles off the western coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos Islands are a province of that South American nation. Composed of nineteen islands and countless islets--all volcanic in origin--96 percent of the archipelago constitutes the internationally famous Galapagos National Park. The remainder is zoned for towns, agriculture, mining, and military bases. In addition to raucous bird colonies, giant docile tortoises, and other wildlife and scenery bordering on the outrageous, roughly ten thousand people call Galapagos home.
The way of life the Galapaguenos have known for generations began to change with the arrival of small-scale tourism in 1970. If the staggering increase in tourism over the last few years is an indication of what the future holds for these islands, then the Galapaguenos' previously quiet lives and relatively high community standards may soon be only a memory.
The first known sighting of the Galapagos Islands was documented by a Spanish caravel that drifted off-course in 1535. Since then, the history of human habitation in Galapagos has been well recorded. Pirates, whalers, and seal hunters sailed the islands, seeking out the archipelago's scarce fresh water. Over the years they loaded more than 150,000 giant tortoises onto their ships for use as fresh meat. Turned on their backs and stacked one on top of the other in the ship's hull, Galapagos tortoises reportedly lived for up to a year, thereby providing much needed fresh meat and liquid for itinerant sailors.
Migratory travelers between the Bering Strait and Tierra del Fuego unwittingly bypassed these islands for thousands of years. Permanent settlement began only in the early nineteenth century. When the young Victorian naturalist Charles Darwin arrived on the Beagle in 1835, roughly 250 islanders were coexisting with strange reptiles under the equatorial sun. "The inhabitants, although complaining of poverty," Darwin noted," obtain, without much trouble, means of subsistence."
A century after Darwin's famous visit, the population reached nearly 800 residents. Today, 10,000 Galapaguenos live in eight towns dispersed over four islands--Santa Cruz, Isabela, Floreana, and San Cristobal. Much to the surprise of visiting tourists, people have been born, have lived, and have died in Galapagos for generations.
The islands also experienced a population explosion of a different kind--an estimated 3,000 horses, 15,000
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