The Galapagos Islands

Over the years, tourism has grown to be one of the most rampant industries in our economy. Visiting new places, trying new food, observing new cultures, and visiting sites of attraction all are great ways for recreation, and creates booming business for many tourism industries. However, tourists forget the consequences of their recreation. In the long run, tourism can lead to the loss of biodiversity that destabilizes ecosystems, and threatens our food supplies. Tourism also leads to an increase in ozone – depleting pollutants such as chlorofluorocarbons. Refrigerants, aerosol sprays, and pollutants from aircrafts all contribute to the destruction of our ozone layer in the long run. Furthermore, tourism not only impacts weather; we can also

In 1976 there was a drought that caused many finches to die off in the Galapagos islands. Two scientists, Rosemary and Peter Grant, studied the island for 6 months each year for 5 years. They recorded, that during the dry season of 1976, there was not even a centimeter of rainfall. On average, rainfall during the dry season is about 12 centimeters. This drought continued through both seasons of 1977. During the wet season there was 25 centimeters of rainfall and 0 centimeters of rainfall during the dry season. The average rainfall during wet seasons at the Galapagos islands is 179 centimeters. Taken this information you can see how little rainfall can have a large effect on the ecosystem. The water deprived plants had a harder time producing

If not for Charles Darwin, shown on the right, the world might not see the Galapagos Islands how we do today. The islands hold exotic and extraordinary plants and animals. Of these animals, some are going extinct or have already gone extinct. There are many varieties of natural and introduced plant life.

One of Udubia’s other main industries is its tourism. The industry is growing as new hotels and cruise ship companies popped up. The hotels require land which decreases an ecosystem size, and the tourists that come pollute the small ecosystems. An article written on dw.com about Easter Island, talks about the negative effects of tourism on the island. “With tourists drawn by the island's famous ancient statues churning out seven tonnes of waste a day, its residents are learning the hard way to recycle. Officials want them to stop throwing their trash indiscriminately into the garbage dump on an island of just 64 square miles” (D.W). The trash impacts the marine animals whose homes are polluted, and whose lives are endangered. “Environmentalists say fishing boats trawling for tuna and marlin in the area dump unwanted nets and plastic that end up on the island's beaches or in the stomachs of sea creatures” (D.W), which leads to the decrease in their populations. Something needs to be done about the land. In Thailand for example, the “government closed down Koh Khai Nok, Koh Khai Nui and Koh Khai Naiin- three popular islands in the coast of Phuket because of the negative impact of tourists in

The islands of Cape Verde were exposed and colonized by the Portuguese in the 15th century. Cape Verde later became a trading center for African slaves and later a significant resting stop for long-haul shipping. Ensuing independence in 1975 and a faltering interest in unification with Guinea- Bissau, which is a one party system that was established in the 1990. Cape Verde also remains to exhibit one of Africa’s greatest steady democratic governments. Recurrent droughts in the 20th century caused major suffering and encouraged heavy immigration. Thus, Cabo Verde’s refugee population is greater than its national one. Majority of Cape Verdean’s like myself have both African and Portuguese antecedents. There is a lot of Cape Verdean’s that live in Rhode Island that moved away from the Cape Verde Islands. The climate is warm, dry summer and precipitation meager and erratic. The terrain is steep, rugged, rocky and volcanic. Their natural resources are salt, basalt rock, limestone, kaolin, fish, clay and gypsum.

The Galapagos Islands consists of thirteen major islands and over a hundred smaller islands located along the Ecuadorian coast. The islands are home to a variety of unique species such as sea lions, sharks, rays, and 26 different species of native birds. Thirteen of these birds are Darwin’s finches. These finches are known to be the “world’s fastest-evolving vertebrates” due to their bodies quickly adapting to the rapidly changing environment (Robertson, N.D. , para.1). Their DNA chemical makeup causes these adaptations to occur. The finch’s most noticeable feature is their evolutionary adaptations, due to the briskly changing environments.

The Hawaiian Islands were created from volcanoes over the millions of years. The Islands sit on the Pacific Ocean plate and the way these islands were formed was from the hotspots in the earth’s crust and from the underwater volcanoes that soon rise to make land. There is roughly eight islands and I believe there will be more islands created in the future and they will keep shifting northwest. The first island is the oldest and roughly near 5 million years old, while the younger ones aren’t as old. Erosion is a common thing throughout the earth but for the Hawaiian Islands it’s changed the way the structure of the volcanoes and the island as a whole. The main reason why the islands are growing is from the lava the pours out of the volcanoes and builds layers upon layers and expands which expands the land. There is enough supply of lava that comes from the mantle since it’s still an active hot spot and will always be a hotspot.

Based on Travel Nation, Guadalupe Island, as well as Isla Guadalupe, has turned into a best discovering location for excellent white fanatics in the last 12 years about. Crystal-clear underwater visibleness and also hot water temps (averages range between sixty seven to seventy two degrees) make that a particularly attractive dive place, and a top place to go for large-game fishing.

Economic mainstay: Sugar production until the 1940s. Manufacturing and tourism have become the main economic activity and source of income. Manufacturing composes about 46% of the GDP of the island.

Furthermore, extraction of building materials such as sand affects coral reefs, mangroves, and hinterland forests, leading to erosion and destruction of habitats. Overbuilding and extensive paving of shorelines can result in destruction of habitats and disruption of land-sea connections such as sea-turtle nesting spots. Coral reefs are especially fragile marine ecosystems and are suffering worldwide from reef-based tourism developments. Evidence suggests a variety of impacts to coastline ecosystems result from shoreline development, increased sediments in the water, trampling by tourists and divers, ship groundings, pollution from sewage, overfishing, and fishing with poisons and explosives that destroy coral

Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos was written one million years ahead of the year 1986 AD. In this book, Vonnegut argues that the ultimate effect of humanity's sociological problems with technology is that man's intelligence will be the downfall and destruction of the human race. The essential point made by Vonnegut in this work is that the "great big brains" of humanity drives people to go further into technology and create new weapons that will lead to the demolition of man kind; Vonnegut disagreed against virtually every technological development (made by “big brains”).

At Hasting’s Point it was evident from the ecosystems visited that there exist many, possible future implications due to human impacts. The value of these ecosystems to us as a resource is immense, however human activity, in particular tourism, threatens to undermine this value. Tourism is comprised of several damaging factors: directly interacting with ecosystems; pollution; development of the area and increased popularity. We rely on these ecosystems for food, relaxation, medicine (scientific research), natural balance and, paradoxically, tourism. However if nothing is done to rectify and/or control this issue, these ecosystems in Hasting’s Point, like many others, run the risk of being destroyed and losing their value as a resource. It

Land plants most likely inhabited the Galapagos Islands first. From what I know about photosynthesis and food webs, plants are crutial for the survival of animals. Plants are the only organisms in the world that can take water, carbon dioxide, and energy from the sun to make food, otherwise known as glucose, for energy. They are the producers of all food webs that provide all animals with food. Using the evidence, I can infer that land plants inhabited the Galapagos Island before the land animals. They had to be there for animals to survive. Herbivores ate the plants, and the energy travels through the rest of the food web. If there were no plants, herbivores and omnivores will have no food and herbivores will die of starvation. With the herbivores

Nonetheless, since an overwhelming majority of the industry is owned and managed by foreign operators, the social and economic contribution to the Galapagos Islands are minimal; “[w]hile foreign visitors outnumber domestic tourists almost four to one, […] just 15.1 percent of the foreign expenditures stayed in the Galapagos local economy, compared to 95.2 percent of the money spent by Ecuadorians” (130-1). Both mass tourism and ecotourism can arguably provide an excellent opportunity for development, but their negative impact is sure to be seen, and could potentially outweigh the benefits that they have brought.

While on the Galápagos Islands, Darwin kept notebooks about all the species there, and he noticed the variety of tortoises on the island who were essential in explaining his theory of evolution. There are several species of tortoise present on the Galápagos Islands that are all very closely related, but slightly different. There are eleven presently surviving subspecies of Galápagos tortoises; furthermore, six of the eleven are found on different islands in the archipelago, and the other five are all found on a single island on five separate volcanoes with their own mini-ecosystems (PNAS). Although all of the species of Galápagos tortoise is different, they each have small differences that can include maximum adult size, shell shape, and the length of the neck and limbs. The tortoises of the islands are most closely related to the Chaco tortoises along the western coast of South America, and they most likely came to the Galápagos by “rafting” across the water (PNAS). Similar to the tortoises, Darwin observed that the Finches on the islands also had changed to match the environment. Spread among the islands were fourteen subspecies of finch whose