Customer Reviews

Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists, and Creationists Battle for Darwin's Cradle of Evolution

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and he is us." Pogo, 1952. Carol Ann has written a beautiful but sad book. Maybe it is human nature, maybe corruption of underdevelopment, maybe the inevitable clash between parks, poor people, religious fanatics, big business, bureaucracy, tourism, science, and preservation. This is a book about people. Other books on the Galapagos focus on the local abundance of its unique environment, its extreme weather, odd species, friendly animals, or the Galapagos as a stage for the ideas of evolution. In contrast the author takes us on a tour of the people who live in the Galapagos and their differing relationships to that environment. This has been a missing ingredient in Galapagos literature. And Carol Ann fills the gap in the language of a poet.

She paints a convincing picture that the Galapagos stand at a crossroads of degradation, overdevelopment, and disneyfication versus some kind of use that will both sustain some people who live there, preserve its unique living environment, and make it available for both scientists studying it and outsiders who come to learn its special lessons. In whichever of these scenarios unfolds, the people now there to whom she introduces us will play a leading role.

One of the themes that the author repeats is that education is an important solution. If the recent Ecuadorian migrants---presumably poor people (many of whom are illegal)---, who come from the underdeveloped mainland for economic opportunity, only better understood the evolutionary nature of the islands, they would not so abuse the resources. Some are Evangelicos, converted Protestants, and employed by the Park as guides. These are ideologically opposed to the ideas of evolution. Others along with old-timers, who lived off the immense profits of now fished out sea cucumbers, feel entitled to harvest what may have once enriched them. They now have to keep fishing or harvesting endangered species in order to sustain their families, and anyone denies them access is the enemy. And corruption enters. A law meant to support locals is subverted. Fishermen riot to do as they wish and get away with it. Large tour operators have access to government higher ups and flout regulations. The park responding to pressure recruits improperly trained fishermen as guides. The park has insufficient resources to patrol for longline poachers and uses the Sea Shepard Society---eco pirates--to help until politics intervenes. The Ecuadorian navy itself poaches. If the older generation is resistant then their children may be educated to understand the uniqueness of where they live. They are a hope of the future.

What a mess. But there are heroes on the other side. Carol Ann gives us attractive sketches of biologists, knowledgeable guides, photographers dive masters, and old timers who really care about preserving the Galapagos. The pictures she draws are much more likeable than those of Edward Hoagland renown caricaturist of the New Yorker whose verbal images often had demeaning twists. She acknowledges her subjects' human foibles but brings their humanity and caring alive. While some of these heroes are pessimistic about the future of the Galapagos, others are not only hopeful but dedicated in the face of what might seem overwhelming odds of overpopulation, corruption, and economic pressure.

Carol Ann has done a service in writing this book. We can romanticize about the pristine nature of the Galapagos and visit them for our own pleasure and edification, but like her we now understand how tentative those privileges are. Lonesome George, the last of his kind, is a metaphor. May those who keep fighting for the Galapagos have offspring. Carol Ann's volume is one such. Thank you.

Charlie Fisher Emeritus Professor and author of Dismantling Discontent: Buddha's Way Through Darwin's World

Today's Galapagos are not the pristine, protected islands many may believe: they represent a collision of economics, politics and the environment that may ultimately destroy it. From unresolved conflicts in Ecuadorian law and local interests to groups and people who have a stake in the Galapagos' natural resources, this assesses impacts form tourist companies, creationist guides, fishermen, and even modern pirates. An outstanding saga of a threatened ecosystem, this is specific and revealing - and a 'must' for any library serious about science and ecological issues.

Read this before a trip to the Galapagos in January. Great context for the entire experience. Sadly, there is an inherent tension in being an "eco-tourist" and the damage tourism of any kind causes. And the Galapagos are a particularly vulnerable ecosystem.

I have to agree with the author that the most likely outcome in the Galapagos is that we end up with a Disneyfied "GalapagosLand" instead of a truly pristine preserve.

My main complaint is that it read more like a series of separately-published articles which means that there's some repetition.

I am reminded of the line from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension -- no matter where you go, there you are. The writer is dragging all the baggage of what environmental writing is supposed to be along behind her. She's at her best, her most interesting, when she's writing from personal experience about going out with scientists and photographers while they worked. The tortoises in the mist, the waved albatrosses, the green sea turtles. But she feels compelled to throw in statistics from the UN Panel on Climate Change, that though everyone agrees they have their hearts in the right place, their numbers have been discredited. She interviews ecoterrorists. She hates tourists that don't come as part of a volunteer work program.

After an 8-day small ship cruise in Galapagos, I purchased this on our return (I had seen it recommended by either Nature Conservancy or Nat.Resources Defense Council.) A up-close & personal account of the difficulty in balancing what's best for these spectacular, fragile & threatened islands and/or what's best for people--fishermen, tourism industry etc./

Carol Ann Bassett is one of the most riveting writers I've ever read. I wasn't reading a book, I was being taken on a journey with Ms. Bassett as my knowledgeable, yet ever-curious traveling companion.