Tourists, cattle and giant tortoises compete

Press, 2 August 1977, Page 16

Tourists, cattle and giant tortoises compete

By

JOANNE OMANG,

in the “Guardian." London

Even’ import of civilisation threatens the strange and wonderful balance that made the Galapagos Islands a famous laboratory of evolution. “When you get right down to it, you either permit people to come and you try to control them, or you close the place down completely,” said Craig Macfarland. Director of the Charles Darwin Research Station. “Even so, the tourists aren’t the biggest problem. It’s the colonists who live here.” The scientists and the colonists have had an uneasy relationship ever since the Charles Darwin Foundation was established by U.N.E.SC.O. in 1959. The Foundation took on the task of promoting research while simultaneously helping — not to say prodding — the Government of Ecuador to conserve and protect Galapagos wild life. Help was needed. Although farsighted conservation laws had been enacted in 1934, they had never been enforced. Grasses introduced to feed imported cattle fed nothing else in the Island’s unique ecosystem and spread off the ranches pushing out native varieties. Goats brought in to provide meat ate the existing vegetation that supported the famous huge tortoises, after which the archipelago was named. “Three goats were put out on Pinta (an outlying island) in 1957 — the national park

service has shot 40.000 there since 1971,” Dr Fritz Trillmich informed a group of tourists visiting the Darwin station. Here tortoise eggs are hatched and the babies raised until they are big enough to fend off the rats. On the pillars of the airy building, another imported plague: red fire ants. The tiny invaders are everywhere on the four inhabited islands, exploding in population and gradually eating their way through all the native ants. They live everywhere. eat anything and have no local natural enemies. They threaten the entire invertebrate population and even attack small bird chicks. They are so dangerous that when a small colony was detected on uninhabitatcd Barrington Island, research stations scientists felt justified in breaking their general rule against the use of pesticides and poisons. A space about the size of half a football field was cleared, dug up, burned and soaked again. Such diligence is futile if the pests keep being reintroduced. Yet 7000 tourists visited the islands last year, the 4500 colonists move around routinely among them, and the scientists’ aims are not universally accepted. “We don’t pay much attention to those guys. A man’s got his own land, he can do what he likes with it.” said Bud Devine, a grizzled Chicago native who has been a cattle rancher here for 29 years. There are 162 farms of various sizes on the four in-

habited islands with about 7000 head of cattle,” he said. "The science types, now, they are parasites really. They live off the tourists and donations from their foundations,” Devine added “They got nothing to do with us.” He expressed interest in the feelers from large hotel chains and developers whose visions of making the islands a major tourist attraction give Macfarland nightmares. The Darw’in Station counters such attitudes with educational programmes to convince the colonists their prosperity depends on preserving the undisturbed Eden that tourists come to see. “Most income sources on the island now are related to tourists, and the colonists have more money than they’ve ever had,” Macfarland said. Darwin Station scientists are sitting out on the islands, under the shade of the weird cactus and the silvery trees, watching the tourists tickle the sea lions and pull the Iguanas’ tails. Guides who shepherd the cruise ships’ boatloads of 80 or 90 persons are required to keep their charges on discreetly marked paths that avoid the most sensitive nesting or mating areas. No food may be brought ashore, no plastic dumped at sea. Only half of one per cent of the Galapagos Park may be visited, and 80 per cent of the island’s land area is included in the' park, Macfarland said. “The total number of animals exnosed to

visitors is really a very small proportion.” There is a proposal before the Ecuadorean Government to include the water around the islands — now free territory — within the park. Although there is no official control over private vessel movement on the water, effective control is exercised by the requirement that private sailors obtain permission to land from the Ecua-

dorean Government on the mainland, 600 miles away. The Government recently stopped giving such permission because of past abuses. But even with constant vigilance and effort, Macfarland has only dim hope that the animal threats will ever be totally wiped out. Some threats can’t be dealt with at all: “The main source of chemical contaminants is

not from within the islands, but from rainfall and sea currents.” he said. With all that, the work continues. “We have a run ning chance to preserve it all and we have to try,” Macfarland said. "Quality tourism is a valuable thing . . . just to demonstrate the thrill of what is here and the value of trying to hold the line somewhere in the world.”