Bassett - Galapagos at the crossroads: pirates, biologists, tourists, and creationists battle for Darwins cradle of evolution

I n the time of the gara, when cold Pacific currents flow north from Antarctica, then west along the Equator, an eerie mist shrouds the Galpagos Islands like a veil. In Spanish, gara means persistent light rain, and to the early explorers, pirates, and whalers who once passed through the archipelago, this ephemeral haze could be both seductive and deadly: The illusion of water called out like the enchanting Sirens of Greek mythology. Charles Darwin wrote in his field journal in September 1835: The main evil under which these islands suffer is the scarcity of water. What Darwin and those before him did not understand was that the Galpagos had survived precisely because the lack of fresh water had rendered the islands uninhabitable to humans. But to the strange and lovely denizens dispersed to these islands by wind, water, and on rafts of organic debris, life had taken a different course. Land species that gained a foothold on these young volcanic islands adapted to whatever food was available, and they evolved in ways unimaginable. Marine species thrived in the plankton-rich waters, including penguins washed ashore by the Humboldt Current.

The Galpagos remained isolated until their accidental discovery in 1535 when Fray Toms de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama, and his crew, on a mission to what is now Peru, were caught in a dead calm and drifted westward on the ocean currents. Berlanga described the islands as dross, worthless, and rejoiced when the trade winds returned to free his ship from this haunting inferno. In time, those who followed would learn to adapt to this volcanic landscape straddling the Equator, just as had the bizarre life-forms that evolved there throughout the millennia: giant land tortoises that can survive more than 150 years; marine iguanas able to hold their breath under water for up to an hour; cormorants that no longer need wings to fly; vampire finches that survive on the blood of masked boobies; daisies that have morphed into giant trees.

The Galpagos Islands and their unusual denizens, part of the nation of Ecuador since 1832, stand at a critical crossroadson a collision course with 21st-century values driving tourism and immigration, and with invasive species that prey on the very life-forms that make the Galpagos special. In 2007 the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the islands an endangered World Heritage site, and scientists, conservationists, and Galapagueos are working to protect the archipelago before its too late.

Today, about 35,000 colonists call the Galpagos home, and more arrive every day, despite new laws intended to limit immigration. The population growth is 6 percent per year, compared with only 2 percent on the Ecuadorian mainland; demographers predict the population could well surpass 50,000 in the next few decades. Ninety-seven percent of the land mass of the islands is protected as a national park; the other 3 percent includes the towns and private land. Yet this 3 percent is where some of the worst problems originate. As the influx of settlers grows and the towns begin straddling the parks boundaries, social, economic, and environmental problems have multiplied. Invasive species brought to the islands over the centuries by colonists and tourists have wreaked havoc throughout the archipelago. Goats, burros, pigs, dogs, cats, and rats have decimated the wildlife and vegetation on several islands, including Isabela, where about 100,000 feral goats turned the verdant hills into a desert and nearly obliterated the giant land tortoises that lived on Volcn Alcedo. While eradication work has succeeded in eliminating those intruders on Isabela and other islands, it could take years before some islands return to their natural state, if ever.

I first visited the Galpagos in 1990 as a young journalist on assignment for a national magazine. Like most visitors, I felt that I was entering a primordial dreamscape where time and space had stood still. From the shore of Floreana Island, I watched a school of spotted eagle rays wing through the waves like butterflies. In the darkness of night, bottlenose dolphins frolicked beside our tour boat, their fins sparkling with bioluminescenceliving light from microscopic organisms. I quickly realized that I had come to Las Encantadas (the Enchanted Islands), as the early Spanish explorers called the archipelago. In the skies above North Seymour Island male frigate birds floated on thermals, their throats puffed out like giant red balloons to attract mates. But what struck me most was the baby sea lion on Santiago Island that trailed me like a puppy and sniffed at my shoes, not knowing what to make of me. As I gazed one day out to sea I spotted a lone sea turtle plowing through the waves like a dark leviathan. Perhaps this is what Darwin saw when he wrote that in the Galpagos, both in time and space, we seem to be brought near to that great factthe mystery of mysteriesthe first appearance of new beings on this earth.