Galapagos Islands -- Darwin's Lab Evolves Into Tourist Hot Spot

GALAPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador - When it comes to survival of the fittest, one species on these precious, volcanic islands may be eclipsing the others - the human species.

Population is booming - and so are T-shirt shops and trinket stands. Trash is washing onto beaches. And fishermen are pulling vast life off the seabeds.

Humans may be imperiling other wildlife, too, like the giant land tortoises, the frigate birds, the marine iguanas and other unique critters that have made the Galapagos Islands a biological jewel.

Lacking jobs and sufficient drinking water, some residents are growing testy. They say protected animals get more attention than humans. A few talk of sabotaging nature.

Talk may be turning into action. The carcasses of 39 giant land tortoises, a highly endangered species, have been found so far this year.

This month, scientists airlifted a mangled tortoise all the way to Florida to amputate part of its rear paw, apparently because they feared that Galapagos residents would rise up in anger if the tortoise were treated at a local clinic built for humans.

In a show of indifference to their surroundings, residents provided little help in fighting a recent fire that devastated thousands of acres on the largest island in the chain.

All is not yet lost.

The Galapagos, a chain of 13 large islands and numerous smaller ones 640 miles off the coast of Ecuador, remain mostly unspoiled. Fully 97 percent of the archipelago is a national park. And a corps of dedicated conservationists is fighting for the long-term preservation of the islands.

But the constant flow of foreign tourists has acted as a magnet drawing unemployed Ecuadorians from the mainland.

"We have such pressure from people coming to look for jobs," said Gunda Schreyer, chief of the state-run Galapagos Institute. "Things are changing really drastically."

It might seem bizarre that islanders would not zealously protect the natural setting that generates their tourism-based livelihood. But many newer residents understand little of what makes the islands extraordinary.

"To them, survival of the fittest means survival of me and my family," said Chantal Blanton, head of the Charles Darwin Research Station here.

Darwin, a British naturalist who visited the Galapagos in 1835, was astonished by the dozens of unique reptile, bird and plant species. A virtual laboratory of evolution, the islands inspired him to formulate his theory of natural selection: that species most able to adapt are those that survive.

Foreigners come to see the lava iguanas, tree ferns, candelabra cactus and red-throated frigate birds. Animals like the huge tortoises and marine iguanas are so remarkably unafraid of humans that tourists can walk right up to them.

About 46,000 people visited the islands last year, a ninefold increase in two decades. The permanent population has also soared. In 1982, a census showed 6,201 residents. It is more than double that today, and officials say it could hit 30,000 within a decade.

Puerto Ayora, the largest town, is a melange of souvenir stands, hotels, coffee bars and charter tourist operations.

"I have family, cousins, who would give their lives to be here," said Grace Lemos, a 22-year-old T-shirt vendor who arrived four years ago from Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Wages in the islands "are double, maybe even triple" what they are on the mainland, she said.

But problems are growing. Electrical blackouts are common in Puerto Ayora, and only rainwater can be used for drinking. Water from the ground is brackish. Food, gasoline and other necessities must be brought from the mainland, raising living expenses.

"All the basic systems necessary for life - like telephone, sewage, health and education - are in bad shape," said Felipe Cruz, interim director of the Galapagos National Park.

As the job market gets tighter and frustration grows over living conditions, respect for the environment has eroded.

Gayle Davis-Merlen, a librarian at the Darwin Research Station, said her husband recently went to uninhabited Fernandina Island, widely considered a pristine outpost.

"It hurt him absolutely to the quick, because the place was trashed. He said it was revolting. Garbage was everywhere," she said.

With social tensions rising, factions are forming - fishermen vs. scientists, small tour operators vs. big ones, new residents vs. old ones.

"Small town. Big fight," said Schreyer, whose German parents were among the original settlers. Forces pressuring the Galapagos originate as far away as Asia. Two years ago, demand surged for sea cucumbers, which are prized as aphrodisiacs in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Fishermen have since harvested hundreds of thousands, with no apparent concern over the biological effect.

Demand for shark fin, a purported cancer cure, has also soared. Military officers are reportedly involved in both the shark-fin and sea-cucumber trade.

Reacting to overfishing, authorities last year banned lobstering until 2000 and cracked down on shark fishing and the taking of sea cucumbers. Angry fishermen say there is little alternative for them. In October, they burned an effigy of a leader of the Charles Darwin Foundation, a nonprofit international group with tremendous clout in the islands.

"It's as if they had cut off my arms," said Alberto Granja, a 42-year-old island native. "It's beautiful to speak of ecology when you have your pockets full of bills. But what's it worth when you are dying of hunger?"

Like Granja, some residents say the villains are the local Darwin research-station scientists, who are viewed as well-paid nature-lovers who wouldn't help a human being if it meant hurting a Darwin's finch.

Schreyer said a prevalent attitude is that "they are giving more importance to the stupid blue-footed booby than to you and me."

Authorities in Quito, capital of Ecuador, have tried to regulate the flow of tourists, recently doubling the fee for setting foot on the islands to $80. But air fare is still half-price for Ecuadorians, and they get other incentives and tax breaks when they move here.

Nature's vulnerability was underscored in the past month by a fire that raged through more than 20,000 acres of Isabela Island and threatened a nesting site of the giant land tortoises before it was brought under control. Like a fire in 1985, which burned more than 50,000 acres, this one was started by humans.

But humans, not fire, are the greater immediate enemies of the tortoises. In February, humans attacked a colony of tortoises east of the Sierra Negra volcano, leaving 31 of the reptiles dead. On April 23, even as the wildfire raged, scientists found another devastated site, with eight half-eaten tortoises.

This month, civil-defense workers transported 40 tortoises on the backs of mules or by helicopter to corrals where they will be protected from fire and human predators.

Cruz, the park director, said the killings were not unusual: "Historically, the people of Isabela have tortoises in their diet."

Blanton of the Darwin station disagreed: "The old number used to be one or two a year that had been preyed upon by humans."

The two differ on something else - a matter that symbolizes how social tensions are hindering efforts to protect the wildlife on the Galapagos. In the April tortoise attack, one of the reptiles was seriously injured.

Darwin scientists wanted to fly in a veterinarian from the University of Florida to amputate the tortoise's left hind paw but needed to use the operating room at the Puerto Ayora clinic. Cruz refused, saying the station should let the tortoise quietly perish rather than raise a ruckus.

"They will massacre us if you want to send the tortoise (to the clinic) when there are people who are dying due to lack of medical attention," he told Blanton in a telephone call overheard by a reporter.

The tortoise was finally airlifted to Gainesville, Fla., for treatment. Dr. Elliott Jacobson, a University of Florida professor of veterinary medicine, said it is recovering and will be returned to the Galapagos in a few weeks.

Among those most knowledgeable about social frictions in the islands is Cristophe Grenier, a French geographer who is completing research for a Ph.D. thesis on immigration to the Galapagos.

"Some people are desperate," he said, "so much so that they will kill Galapagos (tortoises) and set fires."

He said conservationists deserve part of the blame for failing to foresee the human discontent that may become the greatest peril to the ecology.

"The conservationists haven't evolved with time," he said.