Three men and an archipelago

Last night I attended this year’s Galapagos Day talk at the Royal Geographical Society in London.

And what with this being the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, and 150 years since he completed On the Origin of Species, it is obviously quite an exciting year for the group of islands he made so very famous.

Guest speakers were Sir David Attenborough (who sat all evening next to a beautiful giant photograph of a seahorse!) and Felipe Cruz (from the Charles Darwin Foundation). In the chair was Andrew Marr.

In an animated half-hour discussion, these three reflected on what makes Galapagos so special and the problems the archipelago faces today.

Sir David spoke of how Galapagos – thanks to its geographic isolation – is ‘a geological world without humanity’. Human visitors to the islands are alien observers, perhaps like no-where else on earth. And the archipelago is all the more magical for it.

In front of a packed audience, virtually all who have visited Galapagos, the speakers tackled the thorny issue of who should be allowed to go to the hallowed archipelago.

Cruz believes that restricted numbers of high-paying tourists is the only way to make Galapagos tourism work. Forget huge cruise ships. Sailing boats are the way to go.

Marr was concerned this would cut out the young, idealistic people – like Darwin himself, perhaps – for who Galapagos could be a great source of inspiration.

Cruz’s solution was to offer scholarships to the brainiest kids.

Unfortunately, Sir David admitted, ‘we can’t all go to Galapagos’. What’s most important is protecting the islands.

All three agreed on the importance of Lonesome George – the last known Pinta Island tortoise, a subspecies of the giant Galapagos tortoise – as a Galapagos icon for us all to reflect on. With George we are staring extinction in the eye.

I was thrilled when Andrew Marr steered the conversation towards the bits of the Galapagos that lie underwater.

Being a barren volcanic outcrop, everything on Galapagos comes from the sea, Sir David told us. The sea birds eat fish, their guano fertilises the plants, and so on.

‘So, if something goes wrong in the ocean, Galapagos is heading for catastrophe,’ Sir David said, reminding us that it’s not just the local issues that must be addressed but the global problems of climate change and ocean acidification.

Marr revealed his love of the oceans, when he admitted that the recent studies predicting that the world’s coral reefs may be wiped out within a few decades, was ‘the most depressing piece of journalism I’ve ever read’.

Sir David echoed some ideas I wrote about in my book Poseidon’s Steed, mentioning a paradox of our modern world, namely, that we know more about the natural world than ever before, and yet we are also more cut off from nature than we ever have been.

If we make the mistake of thinking that we are independent of the natural world, then we are heading, very swiftly, for disaster.

I couldn’t agree more.

Then, on a lighter note, the speakers were asked by a member of the audience to name their favourite Galapagos species. Marr chose the boobies. Cruz picked Galapagos petrels. Sir David picked the marine iguanas, because there is ‘nothing like them in the world’

‘Except for the spitting,’ added Marr to a tittering audience.

‘It’s a nasal discharge!’ Sir David corrected him.

In detail:

• The talk was the 14^th annual lecture hosted by the Galapagos Conservation Trust.
• It is 50 years since the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation were established.
• The Galapagos Islands are currently listed as a World Heritage Site in Danger because of the many threats to the unique biodiversity that lives there.
• When Darwin visited the archipelago, fewer than 1000 people lived there. Now there are 30-35,000 residents, and around 165,000 visitors to the islands each year.
• The Galapagos sea cucumber fishery is closed again this year, following surveys showing the population is still not large enough to sustain exploitation.