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Published on : Tuesday, June 9, 2020
As Ecuador declared lockdown to combat coronavirus, scientists shipped out of the Galapagos, leaving essential research activities in the mid way along with the tourism of the Pacific archipelago in an emergency situation.
Authorities are expecting a fast recovery of the tourism industry — the main engine of the local economy, once tourists flock from July 1.
In the period in-between, local officials explain that they have to take a leaf out of English naturalist Charles Darwin’s book and “adapt to survive”.
Darwin’s theory of evolution was based on his studies of the islands’ exceptional flora and fauna. However, dozens of researchers walking in his footsteps had to exit before air services got closed as the pandemic advanced.
“Science has to a large extent been paralyzed these days in the Galapagos,” Diego Quiroga of Quito’s San Francisco University told AFP.
Sixteen researchers from all over the world from the university’s Galapagos Science Center were repatriated along with 50 US students when this South American country closed its borders, suspended flights and imposed strict restrictions on movement in mid-March.
However, this move spared the Galapagos Islands of the distressing effect of the vpandemic felt on the mainland.
Ecuador, a country of 17 million, has more than 40,000 infections with 3,500 deaths.
Of its provinces, the Galapagos is the least affected, with fewer than 80 infections among its 30,000 population.
The 76 projects conducted under the Center’s auspices remain halfway, and an international congress’s idea to pull 200 scientists to the archipelago was canceled.
For 60 years, the Charles Darwin Foundation has been operating on the islands. It had to shelve 20 research programs on this context. About 30 scientists of this organization and volunteers who were carrying out field work “had to abandon their investigation sites,” said Maria Jose Barragan, the foundation’s CEO and science director.
Tags: Galapagos Islands