Ecuador (10) – Humans and Nature

In order to protect the existing ecosystem of each island, Galapagos has a central tourist command center that controls the number of tourists allowed on each island at each hour, the time and duration each tour has with a particular island, the number of tour boats allowed to dock by each island every day. The goal is to minimize tourism’s impact. During sensitive times such as Marine turtles’ hatching season, some islands and/or beaches are completely off-limit to tourists.

Each time when we were ready to depart from an island, our guide will exam the bottom of each passenger’s shoes. We were not allowed to take away any sand, dirt, or plant fragments from this island. The danger of spreading certain alien species to the next island can be devastating. A non-intrusive looking grass on one island could grow into tree-like giants on the next. They could deprive native plants of precious resources, the Iguanas who lives on the native plants could then starve. As the Iguanas number reduced, sea lions and sharks would in turn suffer as well. The delicate circles of life has been developed over millions of years. It could be tough and flexible when nature disasters strike, however, when faced with man-made disasters, Nature has still much to learn. Adaptation will take time.

Starting from 1500’s when pirates and Whalers came across the Galapagos during their ocean crossing journey, they took the giant tortoises as their food source. The tortoises can stay alive onboard without water and food for as long as a year. Mariners named the islands “Galapagos”, which in Spanish means saddle; because there was one kind of tortoises had the shell shaped like a saddle.

In recent years, migrates who settled on Santa Cruz Islands brought with them goat and rats. Some of the goats ran wild and learned to appreciate the delicacy of tortoise’s eggs. Goats alone were responsible for a drastic reduction of giant tortoises. Tortoises used to be wide spread in the archipelagos, now most of them live in Darwin Research Station, where scientists and environmentalists are helping them to breed baby tortoises in a safe environment and set them free when they become adults.

In Darwin Research center, the most famous tortoise is “the Lonesome George””, who is the last male of Pinta Island tortoise family. Currently he lives in a large tortoise garden with cactus trees and fountains. Together in the garden were three female tortoises, with whom the Lonesome George had stubbornly avoided any contact. George is close to his eighties. Scientists have all but lost any hope to see a baby Pinta tortoise. The Longsome George has determined to remain lonesome. He seemed rather content on the day when we visited him.

The last item of our one-week Galapagos tour was to visit a volcano on Santa Cruz island. The afternoon before, when Lobo de Mar III just dropped anchor at Port Ayora, the largest harbor of Santa Cruz Island, the crew were joyfully tidying up the ship and getting ready to spend the night with their families after one full week being away, our guide Rodriguez called for an emergency meeting. Rodriguez told us that he had just received news from the tourist command center. The fishermen on Santa Cruz Island had just started a strike to protest the government’s more rigorous fishing regulations. They blocked all the commercial docks and some waterways around the island. Since the island was no longer accessible, our next day’s excursion on the island had been replaced by visiting Black Turtle Cove on the northern side of the Island instead. No crew was allowed to go home that night either.

Sarah, Caroline and I were planning to do some last minute souvenir shopping at Port Ayora. This change of plan meant we had to spend the afternoon confined in our small boat. Soon, the resourceful Caroline found a way. Even though all the commercial docks had been placed inside the picket fence. A small military dock controlled by the Navy remained open. However, it would remain open to small pangas like ours only during high tide. As the crew ferried us to the Navy pier, we promised we would be back in two hours, before the tide fell.

The atmosphere of the island was as gloomy as seven days ago when we first came here. Due to the blockage, most of the tourists were confined to their tour boat; the streets and shops were even more depressingly empty. We listened to our captain, stayed away from the fisherman crowd gathered around the main commercial port. However, the crowd carried the only festival like happy cloud of the entire island. They set up a volleyball court and were seriously playing a match. Many children were influenced by the excitement, squeezing in between the adults, yelling loudly and laughing.

It was cloudy and muggy. The sky was soaked with rain but refused to let them fall. We strolled slowly on the deserted street, wandered in and out of little shops that lined the pebble stoned street that led to Charles Darwin Research Station. Slowly, I told Sarah and Caroline what I had find on the internet when I was researching for this trip.

The “war” between the environmentalists and local fishermen had started in Asia. Asian, especially Japanese, market’s demand for sea cucumbers were the main cause. It was said that every day, Japanese fishing boat would wait outside of Ecuadorian sea borders, buy sea cucumbers from fishing boats came out of the Galapagos at extremely attractive price. In the year 2000, Ecuadorian government caved in to International Environmentalist groups demand, and announced an annual sea cucumber harvesting quota of 550,000. The fishermen completely ignored this regulation and harvested 7,000,000 in the first month following the announcement. Ecuadorian government thus banned cucumber harvest altogether, and increased the no-fishing zone of Galapagos from 50 miles from shore to 300 miles. Knowing their livelihood was on the line, the fishermen staged their first strike. During the strike they surrounded Darwin Research Station, held workers, scientists, their family, and the giant tortoises hostage. They threatened to kill the giant tortoises if the government did not relax their regulations. The government sent in a large number of national troops. The strike ended with a martial law. The military never left the island since then.

Not knowing the fate of the fishermen and the giant tortoises, we left the Galapagos for Quito on a rare sunny day. We said good bye to each other and boarded homeward planes to all corners of the world. About a month later, Sarah emailed me a news article on Galapagos:

“Ecuadorian coast guard confiscated a fishing boat that was fishing illegally inside the no-fishing zone of the Galapagos. After the fishing boat has been escorted back to Port Ayora, workers discovered a group of fifty dolphins had been caught inside the boat’s fishing nets. Majority of the dolphin had died. Scientists and workers from Darwin Station are still trying to rescue the rest. However, the workers think the chance of their survival is at minimum.”

The day I received this news from Sarah, there was a more visible news item made to most newspaper headlines: “Another suicide bomber exploded himself on a crowded Israeli bus, over 20 Israeli died. Israeli tanks marched into West Bank towns as retaliation…”

A friend said, in this world, we humans are merely passing through. When the day comes that we either killed each other completely or we die away, no matter how badly we have damaged this world, Nature will recover and prosper. We, are the weaker species.

It is optimistic of him? Or is it pessimistic of him? That, will probably depend on which side you are one: Nature or Human?