Peter V. N. Henderson
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摘要

Galápagos群岛,长期以来被认为是达尔文的“生活实验室”,是世界上最重要的生态宝藏之一。从1535年它们被发现到1959年Galápagos国家公园的建立,人类的手轻轻地触摸过它们的海岸。由于贫瘠的土壤、缺水和没有丰富的矿产资源,似乎无法维持殖民生活,人类的消失使Galápagos的本地物种得以不受干扰地生存下去,直到18世纪90年代,捕鲸者发现,笨重的Galápagos陆龟可以在他们的船舱里储存数月,作为鲜肉的来源。1832年,厄瓜多尔占领了该群岛,但其殖民努力总体上失败了。尽管人类的定居仍然很少,但人们带来的哺乳动物(山羊、驴、猪、狗和猫)大量繁殖,并减少了特有物种的数量。当Galápagos国家公园开放时,岛上只有大约2000人,还有剩下的特有物种和成千上万的野生动物。与此同时,博物学家查尔斯·达尔文在1859年发表的著名研究《物种起源》提出了进化论的有力证据,激发了生物学家对群岛野生动物的兴趣。其他生物学家质疑他认为自然选择是进化背后的机制的观点;因此,他们从群岛上收集的标本和观察中收集证据,并最终解决了对达尔文有利的争论。1990年以后,由于摄影、旅行者的记录和电影,公众对岛上野生动物的兴趣增加了,因此旅游业和渴望在旅游业中赚钱的厄瓜多尔移民的数量增加了。到2020年,厄瓜多尔当局将面临两难境地,要在保护独特物种及其脆弱环境的需求与游客带来的收入之间取得平衡。环保人士担心,政府将在这场斗争中失败。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
Galápagos Islands
The Galápagos Islands, long acknowledged as Darwin’s “Living Laboratory,” are one of the world’s most important ecological treasures. From their discovery in 1535 until the creation of the Galápagos National Park in 1959, human hands touched lightly on their shores. Seemingly incapable of sustaining colonization because of poor soil, a scarcity of water, and no mineral wealth, the absence of humans allowed the native species of the Galápagos to remain undisturbed until whalers in the 1790s found that the lumbering Galápagos tortoises could be stored for months in their ship’s holds as a source of fresh meat. In 1832 Ecuador took possession of the archipelago but its colonization efforts generally failed. Although human settlement remained minimal, mammals that people brought (goats, donkeys, pigs, dogs, and cats) flourished and diminished the numbers of the endemic species. When the Galápagos National Park opened, only about 2,000 people lived on the islands along with the remaining endemic species and hundreds of thousands of feral animals. Meanwhile, naturalist Charles Darwin’s remarkable 1859 study, On the Origins of Species had stimulated biologists’ interest in the islands’ wildlife by presenting overwhelming proof of evolution. Other biologists questioned his idea of natural selection as the mechanism behind evolution; consequently they gathered evidence from collected specimens and observations in the archipelago, and finally resolved the debate in Darwin’s favor. After 1990, popular interest in the islands’ wildlife heightened as a result of photography, travelers’ accounts, and films, so tourism increased as did the number of Ecuadorian immigrants eager to earn money in the tourist industry. By 2020, Ecuadorian authorities faced the dilemma of balancing the need to preserve the unique species and their fragile environment against the revenue generated by visitors, a battle environmentalists fear the government is losing.
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