Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands [Hardcover]

Michael D'Orso (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 26, 2002

Mention the Galapagos Islands to almost anyone, and the first things they think of are iguanas, tortoises, volcanic beaches and of course Charles Darwin. That's what Michael d'Orso imagined until he first travelled there three years ago. What he discovered was a tropical paradise under siege from an onslaught of desperately poor South American refugees and corrupt fishing fleets that have brought crime crowding, pollution and violence to these idyllic islands. In a narrative as rich and exotic as the landscape and creatures that frame it, D'Orso tells the story of the odd European adventurers who first settled here in the early 20th century, of the eccentric Americans who arrived in the mid 1950s, of the scientists who dug in a decade after that, and of the ecotoursim industry that has exploded in the last 20 years. Following a group of outlandish characters, D'Orso explores the conflicts on land and at sea that now threaten to destroy this fabled "Eden of evolution".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

When Charles Darwin first set foot on the Gal pagos Islands in 1831, he was captivated by an Eden untouched by man. But when D'Orso (Like Judgment Day) arrived on the scene in 1999, it was a different species all together that had brought him and that he found worthy of Darwin-like study-man. D'Orso explains that 3% of the Gal pagos Islands are occupied by an exponentially growing population of people whose migration to the islands began in the early 20th century with a few eccentric Norwegian settlers. The islands have more than 20,000 inhabitants, a motley crew of nationalities ranging from German to Ecuadorean, who call the Gal pagos both a refuge and a home. Predictably, these inhabitants bring inevitable dangers to the idyllic nature of the region-poaching, pollution, overfishing, crowding, ecotourism and the political warfare that will define the islands' future. With rich, witty prose as colorful as the characters he describes, D'Orso reveals the human side of the Gal pagos, including the owner of the Gal pagos Hotel, Jack Nelson, an American who has lived there since 1967; Christy Gallardo, an American who visited the island as a tourist and fell in love with and married an Ecuadorean man; and Mary Rodriguez, the wife of a Gal pagan farmer who in 1992 opened the first and only "gentlemen's club" called Quatro y Media. This is a stellar study of the alchemy of man and nature.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The isolated Galapagos Islands, home to a unique ecosystem, are, thanks to Charles Darwin, the epicenter of evolutionary biology, and numerous scientists have chronicled the lives of the islands' giant tortoises, iguanas, and diverse bird species in his wake, but journalist D'Orso, author of Like Judgment Day (1996), is no nature freak. Instead, he spent three years researching and exploring the islands to learn about their overlooked human inhabitants. Captivating in both his lucidity and precision, D'Orso seamlessly blends island history, political reportage, ecological analysis, and vivid portraits of islanders as he traces the radical changes that are turning this once pristine natural paradise into a besieged and endangered ecological battleground where poachers, scientists, and ecotourists come into sometimes violent conflict, invasive species threaten native plants and wildlife, and corrupt Ecuadorian officials siphon off millions of tourist dollars, condemning islanders to abject poverty. By telling the stories of those who have dwelled precariously, often lawlessly, on the inhospitable Galapagos, from whalers and buccaneers to refugees, mavericks, Ecuadorians fleeing the collapsed mainland economy, and valiant Park Service officers, D'Orso brings into focus the entire spectrum of Galapagos life, a very different world from that shown in romanticized documentaries or glossy tourist brochures. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1 edition (November 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060193905
• ISBN-13: 978-0060193904
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #323,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #45 in Books > Travel > Latin America > South America > Ecuador & Galapagos Islands

More About the Author

Mike D'Orso's work includes 16 books, eight of which have been bestsellers, three of which have been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His most recent book is OCEANA:Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do to Save Them, written with actor/activist Ted Danson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars PLUNDERING OBJECTIVITY ?, October 17, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands (Hardcover)

D'Orso's book highlights some very serious issues regarding the conservation of the Galapagos. Some accounts are dramatic and perturbing, mostly so because given the unique and sensible nature of the islands, any disruption in them seems specially worthy of concern.

The problem I see with the book, however, is that the author shines a negative, unconstructive light on most every single subject that he mentions in a self-serving attempt to add to the impact of the book, even at the expense of loosing objectivity.

D'Orso's book is so unreasonably pessimistic on all fronts that one can't help but wonder why, if according to the D'Orso the present and, mostly, the future is so utterly bleak for the Galapagos Islands, have the islands repeatedly been deemed one of the best preserved natural parks in the world or one of the last remaining natural paradises in near pristine condition.

The author came to Ecuador during very difficult and trying times for the country. As an Ecuadorian, I readily admit that we are rough around the edges in many ways and that we have a long way to go on some fronts. We do. But D'Orso's journalism, it seems to me, is like going to the US during the LA riots, the ENRON debacle, the Marion Barry scandal, the Exxon Valdez spill, the O.J. soap opera, the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, etc. and passing all this as everyday America in a book called "Plundering Nation" This would be wrong, wouldn't it? But doing so with mockery and disdain, as D'Orso does, is even less correct !

The Galapagos islands face many threats and what's being done to protect them may not be ultimately sufficient on all accounts, so improvements are becessary. Better controls, more funding and more political compromise may be needed.

I do dare say, however, that the current state of the islands and the ongoing control and conservation efforts are a source more for optimism than the other way around.

In the past several years introduced animals have been eradicated from several islands, land tortoises, reproduced and bred in captivity, have been repatriated to many islands; marine iguanas have also been bred and repatriated to islands where they were disappearing (as is the case with Baltra Island). Quarantines and controls have been implemented, education efforts have been undertaken, migration bans have been enforced. Several laws which require strong political will have been enacted. The Galapagos have been declared a marine reserve, where industrial fishing is completely off-limits.

However, according to the author, the Galapagos are a place were con-men arrive to evade the law..., where there are rusted Toyota's for taxis...(I've been to the Galapagos some 8 times and have never seen a rusted Toyota passing as a taxi!), a place to which Ecuadorians "flee along with their families from Quito and Guayaquil were the streets are awash with poverty and crime and the air stinks of corruption and despair...", etc., I could go on and on with this.

One last quote from the book (as it very much describes the scornful spirit with which D'Orso's book was written): "With such riches, there seems to be no reason for this nation to be spiraling downward like the swirl in a flushing toilet..."

Bottom line: the book is important and helpful in many ways and rightly unsettling, but its very flawed too.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you want to see the Galapagos, youve waited too long., January 8, 2003

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands (Hardcover)

Swimming with sea lions, petting giant tortoises, observing birds who have no fear of man...These Edenic images, promoted by tour companies, have led many of us to dream of traveling to the Galapagos Islands someday and walking in the footsteps of Charles Darwin. But while these images may have been true forty years ago, when small tour boats brought the first tourist-adventurers to the islands, they are far from true today. In this sad chronicle of the Galapagos, 600 miles from Ecuador, which both claims and governs them, Michael D'Orso documents the devastating changes which have taken place in the past ten years and focuses on the immediate crises of the past three years--crises which threaten the very existence of this irreplaceable natural resource.

Several astute and eccentric long-time residents of the islands serve as D'Orso's first person commentators, giving him insight in to the islands' history, explaining how they have changed, and commenting on the ecological disasters now unfolding. The disasters are many, and they are getting worse, according to D'Orso. In crisp and unambiguous prose, which he sometimes wields like a truncheon, he excoriates corrupt local officials, judges, and members of the national government. Many of these, he points out, have financial interests in the oil, fishing, boating, and tourism industries, but they also want to be seen as "populist" supporters of the poor immigrants who have flooded the Galapagos looking for a piece of the tourist action. The government, he says, is "so horrifically convoluted and corrupt that onlookers have taken to calling this country 'Absurdistan.'"

The introduction of non-native animal species (rats, feral dogs and cats, pigs, goats, and burros), along with foreign insect life (wasps, roaches, and fire ants), and foreign plants (blackberry, lantana, and wild guava bushes) has already permanently changed the environment on which much of the Galapagos wildlife depends. Fishing regulations are wantonly ignored, and penalties are not assessed for violations. Sea cucumbers and other marine life continue to be harvested willy-nilly; fishing boats with long-lines up to 75 miles long continue to hook and kill protected species; and rustbucket oil tankers, never inspected and often owned by highly placed public officials, carry nearly raw petroleum to the islands. They are already responsible for one major oil spill in the formerly pristine islands.

Most threatening, however, is the massive influx of economic refugees from the Ecuadorian mainland who have brought the permanent population to twenty thousand (to be thirty thousand by 2010). With a lack of fresh water and adequate sanitation, and the immigrants' single-minded determination to tap into the underwater riches of the Galapagos, the ecological disaster is not just threatening--it's already happened. In a recent uprising, these immigrants physically destroyed the national park and station offices, along with the personal homes of the directors, even ripping out their toilets.

D'Orso is passionate in his desire to awaken the world community to the disaster that is taking place before the islands have been totally destroyed. His forecast is bleak, but his message, and his book, are strong. Mary Whipple

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Invasive Animal, March 30, 2003

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands (Hardcover)

You know the Galapagos Islands. Darwin made them famous, of course, as a spark for his initial insights on evolution. The specks of land on the equator, off mainland Ecuador, have continued to perform as observatories for evolution. The tiny islands, burned by volcanoes and equatorial sun, have far more life than such an environment might seem able to support, but besides the famous and unusual bird species, there are hundreds of species of starfish, eighty species of spiders, and many others. If you watch TV documentaries or leaf through photo books, you get a flavor of just how rich and strange the life there is. You might know that the animals are so unused to humans that they have not learned to flee even hunters. You might have the idea that the deserted islands harbor but a few scientists and the ecotourists who come to see the unique offerings. _Plundering Paradise: The Hand of Man on the Galapagos Islands_ (HarperCollins) by Michael D'Orso offers a different view of the islands, specifically about one of its newest and most intrusive species. There are about 20,000 humans who make the Galapagos their home, or at least their workplace. They are not just scientists, but hoteliers, nightclub owners, poachers, beggars, religious proselytizers, law enforcers, and more. The title of this eye-opening book isn't a surprise; all these people are not doing the islands any good.

"These islands were simply not made for people," D'Orso writes, but he has interviewed a lot of them for this book to portray humans that are making a go of it anyway. Some of them are eccentric, some admirable, but the islands are few, and have desirable properties, and surpassing written law, the law of supply and demand holds sway (just as Darwin knew). Humans have a poor record of improving the lands they have inhabited everywhere, but D'Orso is withering in particular scorn for the corrupt Ecuadorian government, colloquially called "Absurdistan." Such an environment only encourages people to grab any profits they can, and makes impossible long range planning for conserving the islands' resources. Global agencies are reluctant to invest as they can predict how little money would make it to environmental improvement. There has been a proposal that the Galapagos should be under UN trusteeship; after all, it is one of those sites that requires little imagination to view as belonging to the heritage of all humans. From time to time someone suggests banning tourism. Neither proposal is likely to impress those who are currently gaining incomes from things as they stand.

D'Orso's book brings an important problem to light. It is written as an entertaining profile of different members of the human species who have washed ashore on Galapagos. There are the ex-hippie who has run a hotel there for thirty-five years, the German recluse, the park ranger who endangers himself by hunting poachers, the charmingly corrupt mayor, the Jehovah's Witness naturalist guide, and more. In describing their activities, he has given a human profile to the islands. It is a sad look, nonetheless. Market forces are no way to run an ecosystem.