How sad that this once-prestine, exotic land has become polluted, and
endangered, by a species which is supposedly the wisest on the planet.
Perhaps it is due to our spiritually fallen nature, but it just seems that
wherever we go, whether on the land, or in the sea, or in the air, or even
to other worlds, we disrupt, pollute and ruin things. It is for this very
reason that I question the eventual human exploration of the Solar System,
and beyond, if we even have that much time. Once again I am reminded of the
following verse found in the Book of Jeremiah:

"And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and
the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine
heritage an abomination."
Jeremiah 2:7, KJV


To Protect Galapagos, Ecuador Limits a Two-Legged Species

By SIMON ROMERO - NYT

October 4, 2009


PUERTO AYORA, Galapagos Islands -- The mounds of reeking garbage on the edge
of this settlement 600 miles off Ecuador's Pacific coast are proof that one
species is thriving on the fragile archipelago whose unique wildlife
inspired Darwin's theory of evolution: man.

Tiny gray finches, descendants of birds that were crucial to his thesis,
flutter around the dump, which serves a growing town of Ecuadoreans who have
moved here to work in the islands' thriving tourism industry.

The burgeoning human population of the Galapagos, which doubled to about
30,000 in the last decade, has unnerved environmentalists. They point to
evidence that the growth is already harming the ecosystem that allowed the
islands' more famous inhabitants -- among them giant tortoises and boobies
with brightly colored webbed feet -- to evolve in isolation before
mainlanders started colonizing the islands more than a century ago.

The growth has become enough of a threat to the environment that even the
government, which still welcomes growth in the tourism industry, has
expelled more than 1,000 poor Ecuadoreans in the past year from a province
that they feel is rightfully theirs, and it is in the process of expelling
many more.

By limiting the population, officials hope to preserve the natural wonders
that bolster one of Ecuador's most profitable sectors: tourism. But the
measures are feeding a backlash among unskilled migrants who say they are
being punished while the country continues to enjoy the many millions of
dollars tourists bring to Ecuador, one of South America's poorest nations.

"We are being told that a tortoise for a rich foreigner to photograph is
worth more than an Ecuadorean citizen," said Maria Mariana de Reina Bustos,
54, a migrant from Ambato in Ecuador's central Andean valley, whose
22-year-old daughter, Olga, was recently rounded up by the police near the
slum of La Cascada and put on a plane to the mainland.

The first settlers came to the islands to live off the land, working as
fishermen, ranchers and farmers. Now, most of those who make the short
flight from Quito, the capital, or sneak on the islands in boats are lured
by different sorts of riches: the relatively high wages they can earn as
taxi drivers and hotel maids or workers in the islands' growing bureaucracy.

For decades, the country's leaders did little to prevent people from coming
here, partly to build the tourism industry and then to ensure the government
had a presence among the pioneers. There seemed to be something of a natural
limit on growth: the country had put aside 97 percent of the archipelago as
a park.

But as tourism and migration grew over the last decade, pressure began
building within the archipelago's scientific and environmental community and
abroad for Ecuador to act on curbing the islands' population. The United
Nations put the Galapagos on its list of endangered heritage sites in 2007.

Scientists here said people had already done significant damage, pointing to
fuel spills, the poaching of giant tortoises and sharks and the introduction
of invasive species -- including rats, cattle and fire ants -- that threaten
animals endemic to the Galapagos.

Even seemingly benign human activities like owning a pet can have outsize
consequences here.

"With people come cats, and with cats come threats to other animals found
nowhere else in the world," said Fernando Ortiz, coordinator of the
Galapagos program for Conservation International.

Conflict is built into the rules that allowed the Galapagos to be colonized
in the first place, despite a lack of fresh water in the archipelago.
Technically, residency is granted to a limited number of people, including
those born here and their spouses, people who arrived before 1998 and those
with temporary work permits. The police, known in local slang as the
"migra"
for their role in tracking down illegal migrants, set up impromptu
checkpoints throughout the islands. But the same government that oversees
the expulsions also offers subsidies to people living on the islands.

One subsidy allows gasoline to cost about the same here as on the mainland.
Another allows residents to fly between the islands or to Quito for a
fraction of what foreigners pay. Loopholes also flourish. For instance, a
black market in residency thrives in which migrants marry established
residents to obtain coveted identity cards.

The result: Puerto Ayora's streets beckon with discos, food stands and
souvenir shops. On the outskirts, a billboard with the image of Leopoldo
Bucheli, the pro-development mayor, celebrates a project called El Mirador
that is clearing an area on the edge of town to build 1,000 new homes.

"All we want, like people anywhere on this planet, is a dignified
existence," said Yonny Mantuano, 36, who bought a lot to build a home at El
Mirador. He heads the teachers union here, whose 600 members have chafed at
one of the government's new attempts to limit subsidies: a measure this year
cutting their cost-of-living bonus.

The government's somewhat schizophrenic view of life here is echoed by the
sentiments of the people. Margarita Masaquiza, 45, an Indian from Ecuador's
highlands who arrived here at the age of 14, abhors the government's
expulsions.

"We built this province with our own hands, so, yes, it pains us to see our
countrymen deported like animals," Ms. Masaquiza said. "After all, we are
indigenous Ecuadoreans, how can we be illegal in our own country?"

But when asked how she felt about the impact of new migrants on her four
children and four grandchildren, Ms. Masaquiza adopted a different tone.

"We must preserve opportunities for our families," she said.

Most people in the Galapagos live on San Cristobal, an island where a penal
colony functioned decades ago, and Santa Cruz, where Puerto Ayora is
located. Development is spreading to other parts of the archipelago, as
well.

Isabela, the largest of the islands, offers a glimpse into the Galapagos
frontier.

Despite its streets of sand, Puerto Villamil, Isabela's main town, looks not
unlike a Phoenix subdivision around 2007. Laborers work feverishly on 200
new cinderblock homes on the town's edge. Only about 2,000 people live in
the town, but it has one of the Galapagos's highest rates of population
growth, about 9 percent a year.

"I earn $1,200 a month here, while I could only earn $500 a month on the
continent," said Bolivar Buri, 26, a construction worker born in Puerto
Villamil who made a small fortune this year when he sold an empty lot for
$8,000 that he bought six years ago for $600.

But even in the archipelago's less spoiled areas, there is little doubt that
man's intrusion has altered life on the islands that enraptured Darwin.

On the road from Puerto Villamil to the drizzle-shrouded crater of the
Sierra Negra volcano, subsistence hunters on horseback scan the forest for
wild pigs, a species introduced by mariners over a century ago. White cattle
egrets, another introduced species, fly overhead.

One recent day, Manuel Lopez, a cowboy and migrant from the mainland who
tends a herd under the volcano's mist, emerged from a forest thick with
guava trees.

He paused under the equatorial sun; his gaze narrowed.

"If it is God's will, I'm on this island to stay," said Mr. Lopez, 36.

"We must be in Galapagos for a reason," he said, prodding a visitor to
reply. "Yes or no?"



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