Conflicts on the Galapagos
Have
you ever heard of a tortoise barbecue? We almost had one in the
Not only did they broke into the breeding center, they also burned computers and other equipment in the National Park¡¦s Office, drove the top official into hiding, looted his house and burned up his possessions on the street.
This
sort of incident is not unfamiliar in the
While
the fishermen exert constant pressure on the National Park, tour operators and
scientists are also always protesting against the loose policies and
inefficient regulation on the
The
Galapagos Islands was annexed by
In
1934, the National Assembly of Ecuador passed protective legislation creating
wildlife sanctuaries on the
In
July 1959, 97% of the islands and 50,000 square miles of surrounding ocean was
declared as protected, also, the Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF), an
organization for scientists and conservationists, was founded. The CDF now
serves the main source of scientific knowledge and support for the conservation
of the
In
1967, the Galapagos National Park Service (GNPS), which controls the 97%
protected zone of the Islands, and under the control of the Ministry of
Environment in
In 1978, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declared the Galapagos a World Heritage Site.
In 1986, the protected zone was extended to 15 nautical miles off the coast. A Marine Reserve is established.
In
1998, the Law of Special Regime for the Conservation and Sustainable
Development of the
All these measures reflect the uniqueness of the ecology in the Galapagos and hence the need of preservation and significant international attention towards the management of the area. Now, according to http://www.thebestofecuador.com/, there are five main authorities controlling and monitoring the Galapagos and its surrounding waters:
1.
Municipalities, local authorities and provincial councils
2.
The Navy
3.
Galapagos National Institute (INGALA)
4.
The
5.
The Charles Darwin Research Station run by CDF
All of the above authorities focus on the preservation of the Galapagos. Moreover, a huge number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are donating money to the above authorities in the hope of preserving the environment.
However, the NGOs and administration still face the problem of insufficient funds. Without sufficient resources, the enforcement of regulations is inadequate. ¡§ ¡¥The Ecuadorian government does not have the resources to enforce the limits,¡¦ MacFarland says¡¨ (Cohn 71). The UNESCO¡¦s World Heritage Nomination Boards IUCN Technical Evaluation states that ¡§Despite all the other area of progress, the lack of sufficient enforcement has led to a continued over-fishing which is a major threat to Galapagos marine environment¡¨ (151). A lot of environmentalists thus express concern over the issue of over-fishing.
The
combined effect of artisanal fishing, commercial
fishing and illegal fishing is devastating. Many researches have been done on
this issue, and surprising, effects of the supposedly least damaging method of
fishing, i.e. artisal fishing, are detectable by
studies. In Article Effects of artisanal fishing
on marine communities in the
There are signs,
however, that removal of higher predators may have cascading effects on
community structure. Heavily fished sites clustered together when I analyzed
them using both the full community and a subset of only nontarget
fishes. This could be an indication that fishing reduces the natural
between-site variation in the Galápagos. In this
scenario, the natural variability of the community structure of fishes in Galápagos decreased when sites were subjected to heavy
fishing pressure. Such a decrease in variability could be driven by predictable
changes in certain species which either directly or indirectly result from
fishing. It is unlikely that these differences are the result of only direct
effects, because noncommercial species exhibited no abundance trend as a
function of fishing pressure. (1696)
It is obvious that environmentalists are outraged by such over-fishing. Protests by scientists and conservationists usually result in early closures or cancellation of the fishing season, which in turn trigger angry protests or even violent actions by the fishermen. Although lobsters, sharks, and many other species have all induced conflicts, the sea cucumbers get the most attention these few years. A case study of human migration and the sea cucumber crisis in the Galapagos Islands written in 2002 by Bremner J, Perez shows that:
In the early 1990s, as sea cucumber fishing became established, concerns grew regarding the growing number of sea cucumber fishermen, fishing in sensitive waters, the presence of sea cucumber processing camps in restricted national park areas, and the potential ecological effects of a declining sea cucumber population. As a result, conservation organizations were able to convince the Ecuadorian government to declare a ban on sea cucumber fishing in 1992. The political and economic pressures to open the fishery, however, were very strong, and in 1994 the government opened an experimental three-month season for sea cucumber. A quota of 500 000 sea cucumbers was established. This number quickly was dismissed as too conservative, and estimates of the true catch for that season are between 5 and 6 million. In a short amount of time the sea cucumber had become the most lucrative fishery in the islands, and was reported to have been extremely profitable for the relatively small number of fishermen participating.
Park administrators and conservation organizations were alarmed at the size of the total sea cucumber catch in that first season, and were able in 1995 to establish an indefinite ban on sea cucumber fishing. Sea cucumber fishermen, including both natives and new migrants, raided the national park offices, destroyed property, and took Galapagos tortoises hostage to protest government restrictions on the fishery. (309)
This
also explains why fishermen tend to over-fish: money.
The threat to the
sea cucumbers is being driven by culinary demand. Sea cucumbers are highly
prized delicacies in many East Asian cuisines, says David Challinor,
the Smithsonian Institution's science adviser. (70)
Later
in the article Cohn reveals:
¡K the Ecuadorians found they could make $100 a day compared
with $71 a month from the overfished waters off
The
huge influx of population from mainland
Even with the
protected status, the region is suffering from human population growth. The
number of people living on the island jumped from 5000 in the early 1980s to
almost 15,000 today. Fueled first by ecotourism aid later by fishing,
additional residents "put an enormous strain on the islands'
resources," says Craig MacFarland, a
Perez suggests that advanced fishing techniques and equipment also plays an important role on the exploitation of the islands. He also explains that the increase of fishing population gave rise to the decrease of income per capita and income per units of effort, which consequently lead to the dissatisfaction of the fishermen. Perez sums up the logic in the following paragraphs:
The rapid exploitation of the sea cucumber
has in the past been blamed on the arrival of migrant fishermen from the coast.
It is true that new migrants played a role in the start of sea cucumber
fishing. However, the key factors that allowed for the efficient exploitation
of the new resource were not the fishermen themselves but rather the new fishing
techniques and access to credit and markets. This suggests that the annual sea
cucumber crisis is due to factors more complex than that there are simply more
fishermen generating greater sea cucumber catches. In fact, data show that
despite the substantial increase in fishermen, fishing quotas have limited the
overall catch. In addition, limiting the arrival of new migrants has not eased
tensions. Protests followed the 2000 season, which was well after the special
law restricting migration was enacted in 1998.
It is indisputable, however, that growing numbers of fishermen are changing the social, political, and most importantly, economic context of the Galapagos. Sea cucumber fishing has become a contentious issue with large numbers of supporters and dissenters. Despite the majority approval of fishing moratoriums, the enforcement of the quota system and seasonal restrictions still cause annual incidents of discontent. (310)
The
expansion of the market has lead to a high demand and
in turn a rapid rate of depletion of sea cucumbers. Naturally, the
environmentalists would not allow this to happen, but the substantial monetary
rewards are too good for the fishermen to give up, hence the periodic
conflicts.
The
cycle of over-fishing to environmentalists¡¦ protest to government¡¦s restriction
on fishing to fishermen¡¦s protest to government lifting the ban then a crazy
¡¥gold-rush¡¦ which leads us back to over-fishing, is definitely not a good
system. With the expanding market and fishing population, the ecology of the
Aggressive
conservationists may propose to ban everything from the immigration to the use
of fishing tools. However, that would defeat the whole purpose of conserving
the environment. We preserve the environment for the sake of the people, we do not preserve the environment to keep it away
from the people. It is essential for us to understand why the fishermen ignore
the need to protect the environment. They need to make a living, and fishing is
a primary industry that provides good income in the
Moreover,
bans are not always as effective as one may think. Illegal fishing in fact
contributes a considerable fraction of the total catch. Elementary economic
principles confirm that any price controls and quantity control on the market
will always be accompanied by illegal trading. This will not achieve our goal
of preserving the environment. Platt, Anne emphasizes in It's
about more than sea cucumbers:
What is too easily overlooked by the greens is that no economy can be ecologically sustainable unless it provides for the livelihoods of local human communities that are part of the local ecology. And that makes a big difference in judging the wisdom of how natural assets are to be used. (2)
No
ecology can be economically sustainable unless humans are taken care of. We
must follow the rules of economy.
However,
following the rules of economy doesn¡¦t mean that we have to let fishermen have
their ways. There are a finite number of sea cucumbers and other organisms in
the sea, and they reproduce in a finite rate. Over-fishing occurs when the
extraction is greater than the rate of reproduction. The situation is
comparable to a bank account. One would end up with no money left if he
withdraws faster than the interest rate. That is called capital depletion. Jim Motavalli
reports in article Fishing for Trouble:
Carl Safina, a vice president of the National Audubon Society, responds that the fishermen-who have won some concessions as a result of their agitation-are taking the resources much faster than they can recover. "Instead of living off the interest, these fishermen want to mine the capital," he says. (24)
Going for short term benefits that endanger long term situation is unwise. It is the job of environmentalists and authorities to ensure that current policies are not undermining the future of the people.
Therefore,
a plan that can dissuade people from fishing is needed. In other words, we need
other sources of economic attraction so that people stops fishing. What jobs
are available on the
One
of the options is ecotourism. Ecotourism is, by definition, an
environmental-friendly type of tourism that involves observing wildlife or
natural landscape and learning about ecology. A significant proportion of the
population in Galapagos is engaged in ecotourism services. It is an expanding
market, and is generating a plentiful income for
Indeed,
ecotourism service is offering an attractive alternative to fishing, and some
environmentalists may rejoice at the idea of replacing fishery by ecotourism.
However, ecotourism has its flaws. Ecotourism is a tertiary production which
requires the support of primary production, i.e. extraction of resources. For
example, we will need more food and water to support the larger tourist
population, and most likely they will come from local fishing and farming
instead of imports. There will be all sorts of resource consumption including
food, water, energy and so forth. The economics of ecotourism: A
However, these tourist
activities demand locally supplied inputs and generate value-added,
increasing incomes of Galapagos households and stimulating the demand for
locally supplied goods and services. The result is an increase in output by
activities that do not normally sell directly to tourists. On
Tourism stimulates
other environmentally sensitive production activities as well. Resource-extraction activities (primarily processing and sale of
drinking water and logging) increase by nearly 4% on the main island and
between 0.4% and 0.9% on the two smaller islands. Commerce-sector
output, principally sales to local residents, increases by 1.0%-4.3%, and other
services, including transportation, increase by 1.2%-3.0%.
Incomes of all major household groups on the islands increase (table 7). On Santa Cruz, the archipelago's commercial and tourist center, the income increases range from 3% to 4% in households where the primary income earner is employed in agriculture, self-employed, or salaried, to more than 4.5% in fishing households. Smaller increases in income on the other two islands reflect the unequal distribution of total (direct plus indirect) benefits from tourism among the three islands. (990, 992)
Another
problem is, as The economics of ecotourism: A
An optimistic view in the literature, one held by the majority of researchers, is that ecotourism presents an opportunity to stimulate local economies as an alternative to extractive industries and environmental degradation. In theory, increased tourism in developing countries could increase local incomes. Higher local incomes, in turn, would create incentives for conservation. Wunder argues that "there is no doubt that tourism has contributed significantly to the conservation of the Cuyabeno Reserve" in the Ecuadorian Amazon, ¡K The general consensus among researchers has been that ecotourism thus far has been problematic; because communities often capture few of the economic benefits of ecotourism, they therefore have no vested interest in ecotourism development and are reluctant to forgo profligate land and hunting practices. (979)
Hence ecotourism has its drawbacks. It is only a partial solution to over-fishing.
Another possible solution is aquaculture, to breed sea cucumbers manually and in large scale just like farming. However, Cohn¡¦s article states that:
Scientists and conservationists remain concerned. Even
though proposals have been made to raise sea cucumbers in captivity as
This
method of tackling the ¡¥capital¡¦ problem may contribute to a partial solution
in the future.
Both
the fishermen and environmentalists have their well justified reasons for their
actions. The conflicts between the two parties are therefore not easy to solve,
due to economic and practical constraints. Expansion in ecotourism and the
practice of aquaculture may provide partial solutions to the problem, but there
is no guarantee. We must hope that the Ecuadorian Government and the
authorities on the Galapagos Islands will be able to alleviate the problem, and
hopefully, we do not hear about tortoise barbecues in
Works Cited:
BOE Network. (2001). Galapagos ¡V General Advice: Authorities. from the Internet http://www.thebestofecuador.com/gauthority.htm#authorities.
A case study of human migration and the sea cucumber crisis in the Galapagos Islands Bremner J, Perez J AMBIO 31 (4): 306-310 JUN 2002
Sea
cucumbers and takeovers of scientific institutions Cohn, Jeffrey P. Bioscience.
Fact Sheets on Management of Nine Coastal and Marine Protected Areas. Keith Dobkowski, Yesenia Gallegos, Jason Hoffman, and Angela Mapa (USF). (2001). http://www.komodonationalpark.org/downloads/MPAsheets.pdf
Fishing for trouble Jim Motavalli. E : the Environmental Magazine.
It's about more than
sea cucumbers Platt, Anne. World Watch.
Effects of artisanal fishing on marine communities in the
The economics of
ecotourism: A
J Edward Taylor, Goerge
A Dyer, Micki Stewart, Antonio
Yunez-Naude, Sergio Ardila. Economic Development and Cultural Change.
World
Heritage Nomination (WHN) - IUCN Technical Evaluation. (1999). Galapagos Marine Reserve (