Galapagos Quest: Off to a Bad Start

This skull belongs to a goat -- a species not native to the Galápagos RELATED VIDEO Real 28K

March 1, 1999
Web posted at: 4:29 p.m. EST (2129 GMT)

By Dan Buettner

(Classroom Connect) -- For me, the Galapagos Islands belong in the same book of acquired tastes as caviar, blue cheese, and those big snails the French call "escargot." When you first experience them, you can't imagine liking them, much less paying for them.

Guidebooks endlessly brag about this tiny cluster of islands, 600 miles off South America's Pacific coast. "The largest, most complex and most diverse archipelago left in the world," trumpets one book. "The best place on Earth to swim with large marine mammals," boasts another. Charles Darwin, who started all the commotion when he based his theory of natural selection on his five-week journey here, simply declared that the Galapagos "strike me with wonder."

I'm not so impressed. In fact, the first day here put me in a bad mood. I'm sitting on a boat rocking back and forth in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. After just six hours, I'm sun burnt, dripping sweat, and seasick. One of my teammates just puked overboard.

From deck, I can see three islands in the distance, all looking as Herman Melville described them over a 150 years ago... "Like cinder heaps on a vacant lot." They're covered with jagged rock and prickly vegetation. If you were unlucky enough to be marooned on any one of these islands, the heat and lack of water would turn you into a mummy in a matter of weeks, if not days.

About the same time our earliest human ancestors were standing up on two feet and walking, the Galapagos were erupting out of the ocean's surface. Over the next five million years, plants, animals, birds and insects floated, swam or flew to these islands. Here, they evolved into perhaps 8,000 unique species, many of which appear no place else on Earth.

And then came human beings. First buccaneers and whalers stopped on the islands usually just long enough to hunt tortoises for meat. They took an estimated 100 thousand tortoises, hunting two entire species into extinction.

For the first few weeks of the expedition, the team will travel on the Samba. The boat will become a home away from home for the team members

Then about 150 years ago, people began to clear land and build houses. Now, some 20,000 settlers live in the Galapagos who are trying to make a living in a difficult part of the world. But in the process, they unintentionally destroy habitats (through land clearing), pollute the water and cut down too many trees. Fishermen - both local and international -- take too many creatures from the seas -especially sharks (for shark fin soup), sea cucumbers and lobsters. Perhaps worse, their animals (pigs, goats, and cows) escape and eat the food of native species. On top of it all, 60 thousand tourists (like me) visit the islands, erode the trails and accidentally bring in intruders, like insects in their luggage or seeds clinging to their socks.

Our mission over the next four weeks, as we retrace Darwin's route and go underwater with Jean-Michel Cousteau, is to find out how good or how bad things are in the Galapagos. We'll talk with residents, make observations and collect data. In the end, we'll ask you, our online collaborators, to help make decisions on how well the Galapagos are protected - or aren't.

GalapagosQuest will take the saying, "think globally, act locally" and turn it on its head. We'll give you the opportunity to act globally, but we want you to think locally. Whether it is the Galapagos or your own community, it boils down to this: how can we strike a balance between our way of life and other creatures' rights to live?

Flippers Up!

Dan

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