Impoverished fishermen in the Galapagos struggle to stay afloat
story and photos by EPHRAIM PAYNE
Puerto Villamil feels like a seaside ghost town, though plenty of people live there. A maze of sandy streets radiates from the cluster of bars, restaurants, and shops huddled near a quiet harbor on Isabela Island, Galapagos. Small, unpainted concrete-block cottages mingle with empty, weed-filled lots. Old outboard engines and other maritime trash fill many yards. The wrecked corpses of pangas — small fishing boats — sprout everywhere like invading species. Anti-littering slogans written by fishermen in Spanish decorate most of them: “No Botar Basura El Mar” — Don’t Throw Trash in the Sea. Few people outside the small South American country of Ecuador realize people live in the Galapagos and fewer understand the plight of the islands’ fishing community.
Galapagans are some of Ecuador’s poorest people and the islands’ fisheries cannot support their growing numbers. Scientists and environmental groups are pressuring Ecuador to save the ocean ecosystem, but few outsiders seem to notice the fishermen’s need for jobs to replace the collapsing fishing industry.
The Galapagos, with its exotic animals and historical link to Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, is an ideal ecotourism destination.
The fishermen and their families, reserved but friendly, smile at the few passing tourists but say little. The international media portrayed a different, violent image of Galapagos fishermen during strikes against fishing quotas that erupted in 2000. Scientists and environmental groups, worried about the dangers of over-fishing, fought to close the lucrative local sea cucumber and lobster fisheries that many Galapagos fishermen depended on. The fishermen protested, saying that environmentalists cared more about animals than about impoverished Galapagan people struggling to survive. During the strikes, fishermen took park employees hostage, vandalized park property, and killed endangered Galapagos giant tortoises.
Many Galapagos tourists go to Santa Cruz Island. Some visit San Cristobal. Almost none make it to Isabela, home to most Galapagan fishermen. These endangered fishermen aren’t as interesting as the rare species that attract tourists to the islands.
Above: A tour guide explains the natural history of the Galapagos to a group of tourists on the uninhabited island of Bartolome. Below: Don Carlos Ricaunte, a lifelong resident of the Galapagos and leader of San Cristobal Island’s fishermen’s collective, fishes off a small island in the Galapagos Marine Reserve.
The Galapagos, with its exotic animals and romantic link to Charles Darwin’s evolutionary theory, may be the ideal ecotourism destination. For some wilderness lovers these remote tropic isles evoke visions of primeval grandeur unlike any other. But these parched, windswept outcasts in the Pacific Ocean are a destination of last resort for Ecuador’s poorest citizens. Efforts to conserve the islands’ unique natural heritage depend on the people, most of whom harvest the ocean for a living. An effort by fishermen to replace commercial fishing with more sustainable sport fishing tourism has been hijacked by powerful businessmen with their own agendas.
The philosophies and methods of sport fishing are different from commercial fishing. The main reward for sport fishing is the challenge of the catch, rather than financial gain, as it is for commercial. Some Galapagans want to use their hard-earned knowledge of local waters to guide sport fishermen from all over the world, searching for the fishing vacation of a lifetime. Instead of harvesting ocean creatures for sale in domestic and foreign markets, locals say they would help tourists catch fish for reasons other than their value on a dinner plate. Many sport fishers, or anglers, practice catch-and-release fishing. After a hard fight and a quick photo, fish ideally go back into the water to fight again another day. Released properly, most fish survive and the ocean ecosystem remains healthy. In theory, sport fishing could be a sustainable practice in the Galapagos if the right rules were put in place. But part of the problem lies with those who make and enforce sport fishing regulations.
Recognizing a need to protect unique and threatened natural treasure, the Ecuadorian government passed landmark conservation laws in 1998 to preserve the Galapagos Islands and the ocean around them. Commercial fishing, which had decimated some local species, was regulated and limited to island residents. But under-enforcement of fishing regulations and a flood of economic refugees to the islands increased the pressure on the marine ecosystem, and the cycle of over-fishing continued.
Global environmental organizations also used the Galapagos to campaign against overdevelopment and environmental degradation. Europeans and Americans donated millions of dollars to the groups, which pushed to limit fishing and development of the islands. But locals said their needs for economic opportunity and healthy living conditions had gone ignored. Fishermen continue to defend their traditional fishing while searching for new economic opportunities.
Sport fishing blossomed worldwide as a comparatively profitable and environmentally friendly enterprise to commercial fishing. Many Galapagan fishermen wanted to follow suit and develop sport fishing locally, but rich, well-connected businessmen from Ecuador’s mainland muscled in on the action. Locals began to fear they would be left out of the sport fishing market and forced to continue commercial fishing, as sport fishing is illegal in the Galapagos Marine Reserve until regulations are developed. But mainland-connected sport fishing boats prowl the islands unchecked by Dirección General de la Marina Mercante y del Litoral, the Ecuadorian naval force charged with protecting the reserve’s boundaries.
The cool, cobalt Pacific Ocean surrounding the Galapagos burgeons with bio-diversity. Several ocean currents converge near the islands and stir up a rich sea of nutrients, feeding an ecosystem spanning microbial plankton to the whales that first brought fishermen to the waters in the late 1700s. More than 300 species of fish thrive in the turbulent waters, including such prized angling species as marlin, swordfish, wahoo, snook, and red snapper.
In the early twentieth century, Ecuadorians began exploiting the abundant ocean, first chasing bacalao (groupers) and other rockfish, then lobsters, and finally sea cucumbers and sharks. These fisheries boomed at first, drawing more people to the Galapagos and increasing pressure on the fish. Each fishery in turn collapsed as the target species disappeared. Since there is little fresh water on the islands, it is almost impossible to farm anything, and many settlers have relied heavily upon the ocean to sustain themselves.
