1. Nature as a Social Construct: Its Effects on Conservation in the Galapagos
“When we tug at a single thing in nature, we find it attached to the rest of the world.” –John Muir
John Muir, an early 19th century American naturalist, was integral in the establishment of
the National Park Service in the United States of America. His philosophy of saving natural
spaces for the sake of having natural spaces was a relatively new idea. In the early 1900s, the US
government began to set aside pristine land to be untouched by the destructive human hand. But
in order to save the pristine landscape, the government had to remove the native people who had
been living in the land for centuries. Western ideas about nature have removed humanity from
the picture. But in our attempts to separate people from nature, we find, as Muir noted in his
quote, that everything is connected. This connection between people, culture, and nature is often
complex and understood only in retrospect. In the Galapagos Islands, an oceanic archipelago
located 1000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador, the native and endemic flora and fauna are at
risk of being destroyed by the encroaching human population. Likewise, the human population is
facing its own crisis. There is no reliable source of potable water on the islands. Bottles of water
must be shipped in from the mainland bringing more invasive species. There is no good sewage
treatment plant and the waste that the town produces is not disposed of properly. Many
conservationists to believe the best solution this problem is to remove all the people from the
islands in order to preserve the island’s biodiversity. A good number of the locals feel
marginalized by conservation efforts on the island, complaining that no one cares about the
needs of the people. What would be the best course of action to resolve these issues? Should the
needs of the people take precedence over the rights of nature? The bigger question (one many do

2. not consider) is why are human needs and the rights of nature mutually exclusive? This paper
explores the idea of nature as a social construct and where the Galapagos fits in to this construct.
At first glance, the definition of nature seems obvious. It is often described as the natural
environment, usually one that has been untouched by human intervention. According to a
Wikipedia definition of the word, nature can mean several things depending on the context. It
can be understood broadly as a term to describe the physical world as a whole. In the original
Latin, natura meant the “essential qualities or innate disposition” of something. Today, the
definition has been expanded to mean an environment untouched by humans. Something that is
natural has not been altered by humanity in anyway. If something has been changed by
humanity, its very essence is altered and it becomes artificial and unnatural. This understanding
of nature implies that the natural world loses its purity once it has been touched by human hands.
In many cases in the Western world, natural is good, unnatural is bad.
Ideas about nature and wilderness have not always been consistent. In the Judeo-
Christian tradition, nature, or the wilderness, was something to be conquered. God gave man
dominion over the plants and animal. When European explorers first travelled to the East and the
New World, the wilderness was a frightening place. It was seen as something to be subdued or
tamed. Once the Industrial Revolution gained speed, the earth became a valuable source of raw
material. Nature then became something to be exploited. As technology became more efficient at
extracting resources, the natural environment was altered more rapidly than ever before. Human
environmental consumption increased steadily and people began to take notice of the effect this
change had the environment and human health. Legislation concerning the extraction of natural

3. resources began to makes its way into laws around the world by the 1800s. the effects of
pollution in the industrialized world began to have health consequences on its people. The
environmental movement as we know it today is (in part) due to the extreme changes made to the
environment during the Industrial Revolution. The idea that we need to save the planet from the
destructive human hand is fairly recent. But, where do the Galapagos fit into this?
This change in attitude towards nature more or less mirrors the change in attitude towards
the Galapagos archipelago through the 16th century leading up to the present day. The human
history of the Galapagos is a fairly recent one. In 1535, Fray Tomas de Berlang, the bishop of
Panama, was sent to Peru to mediate between squabbling conquistadors. On his way, the trade
winds died and the ship drifted past the rocky ocean archipelago. The Bishop was not impressed
with the islands and instead found them foreboding and hostile. It earned the nickname the
Enchanted Islands not because its visitors found it charming. Rather, the constant mist that
shrouded the rocky, unforgiving terrain gave the islands an air of mystery and darkness. After
this discovery, the islands became a sort of hide out for pirates and privateers. They used the
islands as a way station to rest and gather food supplies (usually in the form of giant tortoises.)
Oftentimes, visitors to the islands would gather fauna from one island and (upon realizing the
ship could not handle the weight) move it to another island. This displaced various species and
subspecies and forced the animals to make the new island their home. The Spanish slowly lost
control over the Pacific Ocean and mercantilism was no longer lucrative. As a result, piracy lost
it its profitability; whaling and sea lion hunting became more popular. . These extraction
excursions were mainly practiced by British and American sailors. The sailors overexploited the
resources the islands had to provide and almost drove the fur seal population to extinction. It was

4. around this time that Darwin made his visit to the Galapagos archipelago. He only spent five
weeks in the islands. During this time, the islands were not empty of people. In 1832, Ecuador
annexed the Galapagos and the first settlement was created in Floreana. The Galapagos that
Darwin studied and utilized in the development of his theory of evolution had already been
heavily altered by the human hand.
Humanity has been altering the face of the earth since our appearance as a species fifty
thousand years ago. It is one of the reasons why the idea of “pristine nature” is simplistic when it
comes to understanding the world around us. There is a myth of independent nature that exists in
a vacuum outside of human influence. This myth ignores the fact of biophysical connections
between people and nature. The notion that the Galapagos are in a crisis is fairly recent. In 2008,
the prominent newscaster Dan Rather declared the archipelago as being entrenched in a war
between Man and Nature. Before Darwin made his scientific inquiries, the islands were no more
than a godforsaken pile of rocks in the Pacific. When the archipelago began to be recognized for
its contribution to the understanding of evolutionary processes, it began to be valued more highly
for it scientific value. Indeed it is akin to holy ground to many scientists who call it the
“evolutionary Eden;” in other words, a location of scientific origin. It is a sort of Mecca for
biologists, ecologists, and evolutionary scientists. This view of the Galapagos is very much
political and completely dependent on social context. However, the pristine nature these
scientists and nature enthusiasts seek has not existed for hundreds of years on the Galapagos
archipelago. This narrative of untouched nature fits seamlessly into Western ideals of scientific
knowledge of islands. There is romantic Western ideal of remote tropical islands isolated from
the ravages of the modern world. Examples can be seen in popular novels such as The Swiss

5. Family Robinson and Treasure Island. The idea of Darwin in a “natural laboratory” is very much
appealing to the Western mind. It is easy and attractive to imagine a modern man wandering
around the wilderness and discovering the roots of all life on earth. It should be said that islands
are extremely important to the understanding of evolutionary processes and can function in some
ways as a “natural laboratory.” However, this understanding of island systems belies the fact that
the Galapagos landscape has been altered for some time. When people and nature are separate,
ideas of people (modern people) in nature seems incongruous and somehow unholy. This shapes
how conservation efforts play out, not just in the Galapagos but in other threatened ecosystems
that contain people.
This incongruity of conservation and human settlement can be seen in conservation
efforts in South Africa. Efforts to conserve the Albany Thicket Biome (located in the Eastern
Cape Province) have been similar to early US conservation efforts. In an effort to conserve flora
and fauna, authorities how found it difficult to decide what to do with the people living on the
land they are trying to preserve. It has been a struggle to integrate the conservation efforts of
biological and cultural diversity. The land in question is the traditional homeland of the Ciskei
and Transkei people. In an effort to understand and engage the Xhosa people living in this
important biome, scientists conducted a descriptive study. Their goal was to understand the
relationship between the locals and nature; was it a love of nature, an appreciation of aesthetics,
or some other reason? What they found was surprising. When presented with photographs of
picturesque South African landscape, the locals did not respond with an understanding of nature
as some vague, “other” place. The interviewees wanted to know the specific landscape they were
being shown, looking for a familiar place. The researchers realized that the questions they asked

6. were designed to elicit certain responses, ones that evoked the “wonders of nature.” However,
the locals valued specific areas known to them as special and important. Even transformed
natural areas (called ihlathi lesiXhosa) were stilled valued for their recreational and spiritual
importance. The ihlathi lesiXhosa was a place of shelter and protection. Among the people living
in and around this land there was a saying: “God is my forest” which could also be understood as
“God is my refuge.” The Xhosa viewed the forest as a home, a place to be with God. But at the
same time it was a place of use (firewood gathering, ritual, meditation.)
It is clear that in order for biologists, ecologists, conservationists, and environmentalists
to understand nature, they must also understand people. In many conservation efforts, there is an
issue of valuation. As stewards of the environment we must decide what is valuable and what is
not. This is at best a simplistic way to view the world; at worst it is deeply misguided. In Hawaii,
scientists have struggled to decide which sites to preserve and how to preserve them. The islands
of Hawaii are similar to the Galapagos in some ways. Both are oceanic archipelagos, although
the Hawaiian Islands are older by several million years. Both have had their landscape altered by
human presence. However, the Hawaiian Islands have lost much more endemic and native fauna
than the Galapagos. In fact, three-fourths of all US plant and bird extinctions have occurred in
Hawaii. Therefore, it can be said that Hawaii is facing a crisis of its own. There has been an
ongoing effort to restore remaining dry forest areas by the US National Forest Service with the
help of locals, native Hawaiians, ecologists, and several other agencies. Despite their well-
meaning efforts, this project ran into some trouble: how do you decide which species and
ecosystems to save? The prehuman history of Hawaii ended one thousand years ago, much
earlier than the Galapagos. The Polynesians that first colonized the islands brought several

7. invasive species to the islands (which were eventually incorporated in the native flora and
fauna.) The state tree on Hawaii, the kukui, is in fact a nonnative tree that was brought to the
islands by the Polynesian settlers. This made it difficult for the people involved in the
conservation effort decide which plants to restore and which to dig up or ignore. Some valued
the cultural significance of nonnative species while others were dead-set against these species’
incorporation in the Hawaiian dry forest ecosystem. Likewise, the black cypress (an important
regional landmark) is also a nonnative species. Some native insects have found a new home in
invasive plant species, further complicating the issue. Who decides what stays and what must
go? The Western human idea of compartmentalizing the world into places where nature belongs
and where humans belong is an archaic idea that needs revising.
The issue of degraded ecosystems in the Galapagos is much deeper than kicking
out its inhabitants and allowing nature to flourish. Nature is a cultural projection that is not
necessarily based in reality. The truth is we can always change the way we think about the world
around us. A new understanding of what is nature does not mean the natural world is not worth
fighting for. Many assume that nature and humanity are a volatile mixture, resulting in the
destruction of nature. Nature is an ideal that represents all that is pure and good in Western
thought. This narrative of unaltered nature is unhelpful in conservation issues, especially when it
concerns human populations. A new narrative may lead to a more holistic understanding of the
world around us and give us better idea of how to improve life for all living creatures.

8. Bibliography
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'Pristine' Nature in the Galapagos Islands." Island Studies Journal 6.2 (2011): 131-56. Print.
Bassett, Carol Ann. Galapagos at the Crossroads: Pirates, Biologists, Tourists, and Creationists
Battle for Darwin's Cradle of Evolution. Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2009. Print.
Larson, Edward J. Evolution's Workshop: God and Science on the Galápagos Islands. New
York: Basic, 2001. Print.
Cabin, Robert J. "Nature Is Dead. Long Live Nature!" American Scientist 101.1 (2013): 30.
Print.
Cocks, Michelle L., Tony Dold, and Susi Vetter. "‘God Is My Forest’ – Xhosa Cultural Values
Provide Untapped Opportunities for Conservation." South African Journal of Science 108.5/6
(2012): n. pag. Print.