Diego Quiroga

Changing Views of the Galapagos

Since the first colonists and scientists went there in the 1830s, the Galapagos Islands were seen in two different and dissimilar ways. Some of the early visitors and Ecuadorian colonists viewed the Galapagos as a new frontier, a land to be conquered. They saw the Galapagos as a place where humans had to impose their schemes over nature and had the right to use its products. In 1832, Ecuador claimed possession of the islands and started the process of colonization. Entrepreneurs went to the islands with the hope of extracting guano and a dye from the lichen, cochinilla. As they settled and tried to produce for the continental and the international markets, colonists conceived of the Galapagos as a distant and challenging territory. The local population has grown and currently numbers about 25,000 people. During the last few decades, new extractive economies such as sea cucumber and lobster fishing and shark finning have grown in importance as people have tried to generate monetary resources from these and other extractive industries, despite the opposition of scientists and conservationists. From its humble beginnings in the 1960s, tourism has become the main economic force of the Galapagos. With some 200,000 visitors each year, much of the islands’ economic growth, and even a portion of the resources needed for conservation, comes from this sector. The tourism industry has successfully used aspects of the scientific constructs of the Galapagos and added some of its own to make the Galapagos one of the most important destinations for nature tourism.

Scenario planning for tourism management: a participatory and system dynamics model applied to the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador

ABSTRACT This paper presents a decision-support system based on a system dynamics model designed to examine tourism management in the Galapagos Islands. A participatory approach was used to integrate the views of multiple stakeholders in the Galapagos Islands and to build an understandable, graphical representation of the impacts of tourism and residential population growth. Each subsystem is examined through hypotheses involving three scenarios of tourism growth that are associated with different residential population expansions. A number of integrative and linked social-ecological effects in our model have been shown to severely shock the natural environment of the Galapagos and saturate the capacity of several socio-economic subsystems. Major concerns of the expanding human dimension in the Galapagos are represented by (1) the growing number of introduced species that threaten the Islands’ unique natural environment, and (2) the rapid saturation of the Galapagos National Parks tourism reception capacity. The model relies upon real data to specify rules, relationships, and rates of exchange that are derived through statistical functions and/or functions specified in theory or practice. The presented decision-support system is a quantitative scenario-planning tool that can be used by policy-makers to achieve an enhanced understanding of the Galapagos Islands as a coupled human–natural system.

Governance is critical to managing coastal and marine resources: Effects of marine management areas

Worldwide, coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, and other highly diverse tropical marine ecosystems are under sharp decline. Anthropogenic impacts are degrading water quality, habitat configuration and the ecological structure of entire coastal systems. Consequently, most coastal marine fisheries are under an increasing threat of collapse. This global crisis poses an unprecedented challenge not only to marine biodiversity con-servation, but also to the livelihood of millions of people who depend on healthy coastal ecosystems, especially in developing countries. Globally, almost 50 percent of fisheries are at maximum capacity, while more than 25 percent have been pushed beyond sustainable limits. Industrial fishing practices have depressed populations of large predatory fish to about 10 percent of pre-industrial levels throughout the global ocean. Recent assessments show that 20 percent of the world’s coral reefs have been effectively destroyed, a further 24 percent are under imminent risk of collapse, and another 26 percent are under long- term threat from human-caused pressures.Marine managed areas (MMAs) of various types are a form of resource management that regulates human activities in particular locations (area-based management strat-egy). There are many types and management regimes of MMAs, from multiple-use and community-managed areas to no-take reserves, but objectives generally converge at soci-oeconomic (e.g., fisheries, tourism) and biodiversity conservation benefits. Due to their immense potential and cost-effectiveness, MMAs are being proposed as central coastal and marine management tools, and there has been increasing interest – particularly among international, non-governmental and multilateral development organizations – in evaluating and developing tools to increase MMAs’ effectiveness (Orbach and Karrer, 2010). The current challenge, however, is to ensure that these commitments are trans-formed into meaningful actions.Governance systems – those arrangements by which communities of people at dif-ferent scales make common rules of behavior – occur in many different forms across nations and cultures (Figure 27.1). There is also a significant difference between gov-ernance structures on land and in the sea. On land, most property and many resources are subject to private ownership, as private property. In the sea, it is generally true that the water, seabed, and resources are common pool, or common property. That is, those environments and resources are held in trust by governments and managed for the

Health beliefs, healing practices and medico-ritual frameworks in the Ecuadorian Andes: the continuity of an ancient tradition

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the European Commission-funded project ‘MEDICINE: Indigenous Concepts of Health and Healing in Andean Populations’, which takes a time-depth perspective to its subject, and uses a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The long-term study objective is ultimately to offer novel perspectives and methods in the global agenda to develop policies sensitive to indigenous, refugee and migrant people’s social, economic and health needs, as well as culturally sensitive approaches to the conservation of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’. This paper focuses on the project’s first phase, the critical examination of archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence and accounts from contemporary indigenous practitioners of Andean Traditional Medicine. These sources then shape the development of health beliefs and practices models which have informed the development of questionnaires for the second ‘survey’ phase of three indigenous Andean populations in the Central Sierra region of Ecuador.

Galapagos: A Microcosm of Sustainable Energy Mix in Fragile Environments

The Galapagos Islands are an oceanic archipelago separated by around 1000 km from the closest land area, the mainland of Ecuador. This archipelago houses a high number of endemic species unique in the world. With 95% of the endemic animals and plants still present, the Galapagos can also be considered one of the best conserved archipelagoes of the world. Diverse ocean currents, some of which like the Cromwell Subequatorial Current and Humboldt or Peruvian Current, are cold and nutrient rich and are associated with upwelling cells. Others like the Panama Current carry warm waters. These currents produce in a relatively small space contrasting conditions of temperature and precipitation and generate a unique set of conditions that allow for the presence of the characteristic flora and fauna. Many of the islands have tall volcanoes reaching more than 1000 m above sea level trapping the clouds and the moisture; the different altitudinal levels that produce diverse ecological zones constitute an opportunity for divergent adaptations. Historically, energy has played a major role in the economic development of the fishing industry and settlement of the Islands. Growing tourism pressure on both land and marine environments and population growth on expansion in local communities are increasing energy demand. However, increasing diesel fuel dependency risks greater environment risk and economic costs.

Incentives for Galápagos protection

Brazil’s government is reopening bidding rounds for deep-sea oil and gas exploration after 4 years of economic and political turmoil. According to its ambitious 4-year plan (1), through which the government expects to profit from licenses and production royalties, Brazil will lease hundreds of offshore areas for exploration in depths below 200 m. Allowing such exploration will substantially expand the offshore industry in regions that are of biological and ecological relevance for deep-sea conservation (2). In deep-sea basins within Brazil’s exclusive economic zone, where more than 70% of the current offshore oil production is concentrated, there is already substantial overlap between leased areas and vulnerable marine ecosystems, including cold-water corals and submarine canyons (3). Other vulnerable ecosystems, such as cold seeps, are poorly reported even in basins where there is biological and geophysical evidence for their presence (4, 5). The spatial overlap and depth distribution of pockmarks within oil fields suggest that seeps may be common in areas currently offered on bidding rounds. As a result, the planned expansion of offshore leasing areas will increase the impacts of the offshore oil industry from the Amazon to the Edited by Jennifer Sills Deep-sea drilling threatens cold seep ecosystems.

Darwin, Emergent Process, and the Conservation of Galapagos Ecosystems

The short visit that Charles Darwin made to the Galapagos Islands had an important, albeit mythicized influence in Darwin and his ideas. Conversely and often less recognized, Darwin’s visit and legacy transformed the Galapagos in many and profound ways. His ideas and his legacy inspired a series of conservation measures, geographical delimitations, legal actions, business enterprises, and scientific work. Many institutions, such as the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Charles Darwin Research Station (see Reck, Chap. 7), were created under the umbrella of Darwinian view to conserve the Galapagos. On the other hand, Darwin was a symbol and an icon associated to the islands used by tourism companies to promote a growing industry that in their desire to see a pristine Archipelago, as supposedly Darwin saw, have contributed to the growth of the local economy and the local population and threaten the stability of that very construct. In this chapter, I explore the way Darwin and his ideas can guide our understanding of the socio ecological process and the type of strategies that can help protect the Galapagos.

Darwinian Emergence, Conservation, and Restoration. Novel Ecosystems and Hybrid Environments

Introduced species have been identified as a major threat to the native and endemic species in many oceanic islands (Whittaker 1998). In the case of the Galapagos, many of these species have proven very difficult if not impossible to eradicate. Such dramatic situation has motivated some people to suggest that it is necessary to change our current paradigm which pretends that we can eventually win the fight against invasive species and restore pristine environments. This chapter presents a debate about the way in which introduced species create emergent and Darwinian processes that threaten not only what are considered to be pristine environments but also our sense of stability and order.

Darwin’s Galapagos Myth

In a mythicized series of events the connection between the Galapagos Islands and Darwin has determined the relationship between science and conservation, tourism and the flow of foreigners to the Archipelago. The Galapagos has been portrayed as a natural laboratory where Charles Darwin developed his views and his ideas, a place of high endemism, where one can see adaptive radiation and where conservationists are looking at novel and often successful solutions to deal with major threats. This introducing chapter identifies a crucial change in the way Darwin and Darwinism are expressed in the Galapagos Islands. Darwinist discourse has changed substantially. We believe that two types of Darwinisms are today present in the Galapagos: a deep or academic Darwinism that is philosophically close to materialism and atheism; and a shallow Darwinism, a hybrid perspective that has been established as local people are increasingly more involved in tourism and conservation. This new angle looks at evolution and nature and strips away all the more troubling implications of Darwinism.