Galapagos history

The Galapagos were discovered in 1535 by Fray Tomas de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama who had been sailing to Peru, recently conquered by Pizzaro, when his ship became becalmed and was carried west by currents; his discovery was entirely accidental. He wrote that the islands were inhabited only by birds, seals and reptiles. By the time de Berlanga sighted the first of islands, his ship had only a two day supply of water. They found no fresh water on the first island they landed on. In the report to the King of Spain, Tomas de Berlanga did not refer to the islands by name, but they appear on Ortelius's 1570 world map as "Insulae de los Galopegos" or "Islands of the Tortoises," based on sailors' descriptions of the many tortoises inhabiting the islands.

By 1790 pirates were being replaced by whalers. Captain James Colnett was comissioned by His Majesty's government to investigate the possibilities of sperm-whale fisheries in region and visited the islands in 1793 and 1794. Colnett made the first reasonably accurate map of the archipelago and set up a "Post Office Barrel" on Floreana. Whalers, who would be at sea for years, would leave letters in the barrel and ships heading back to England to port would pick up the letters and deliver them to port. The Post Office Barrel may still be seen today on the shore in Post Office Bay.

But by the 18th century, British whalers and sealers began to visit the islands regularly as part of an effort to set up an industry center in the Pacific Ocean. The first known human settler on the islands was Patrick Watkins, an Irish crew member on a British ship, who, for unknown reasons, was put ashore at Floreana in 1807. Accounts of how long he stayed there - and how he departed - vary, but eventually he returned to mainland Ecuador. It was not until 1832, when the Galapagos Islands were annexed by Ecuador as a territory, that a formal settlement was established. These early colonists set up small farms on Floreana and Santa Cruz, growing their own food and supplying vegetables to whaling ships.

In 1835, Charles Darwin visited the islands while serving as official naturalist on the five-year voyage of the H.M.S. Beagle. On the Galapagos Islands, it became clear to Darwin that, over time, different species adapt to their environment. He was intrigued by the fact that each small island had its own characteristic species of bird, lizard and tortoise. Because the islands' physical and climatic conditions were relatively similar, he reasoned that they were not responsible for these differences. Instead, he concluded that the differences were related to feeding habits. This theory helped form the basis of Darwin's unprecedented works on biological adaptation, natural selection and evolution.

In the XX century, the Galapagos Islands have been given the official name Archipelago de Colon or "Columbus's Archipelago", in honor of Christopher Columbus. In 1934, the first legislation to protect the islands was enacted. Also in 1959, the Galapagos were declared a National Park by the government of Ecuador. Later, the ocean surrounding the islands was declared a Marine Reserve and placed under the park's jurisdiction as well. Since the 1964 establishment of the Darwin Research Station on Santa Cruz a site of increased scientific study and tourism.

Galapagos Islands were declared as a Natural World Heritage in 1978 by the UNESCO and in 1985, as a biosphere reserve. In 1990, the archipelago became a whale sanctuary. Organized tourism began in 1970, when 1000 tourists visited the islands. Tourism has grown to an estimated 60,000 visitors annually in the 1990's. In 2007, UNESCO put the Galapagos Islands on their World Heritage in Danger list because of threats posed by invasive species, unbridled tourism and overfishing. On 29 July 2010, the World Heritage Committee decided to remove the Galapagos Islands from the list because the Committee found significant progress had been made by Ecuador in addressing these problems.