CONTRIBUTION
Founded in 1959 under the auspices of UNESCO and the World Conservation Union, the CDF is a non-governmental organisation headquartered in the Galapagos Islands, where it operates the Charles Darwin Research Station. The Foundation’s goal is to collaborate in Galapagos Biodiversity Conservation through scientific research and complementary activities such as specialist training, education and technical advisory services.
The results of its scientific projects have informed many of the decisions of official Ecuadorian agencies on the Galapagos National Park and Marine Reserve. CDF was a driving force behind the Galapagos Law enacted in 1998, which seeks to promote sustainable local development and conserve the biodiversity of the zone through measures like controlling tourism, so as to mitigate the risk of alien species being brought to the islands, and strengthening environmental planning and control in the three percent that is actually inhabited.
The Charles Darwin Foundation advises on and monitors the Galapagos Biodiversity Conservation Plan on a remit from the Ecuadorian government. Its reputed scientific team comprises approximately 70 persons, including 9 PhDs, 17 MScs, 27 undergraduates, and 2 associate graduates. Research efforts have centred on generating knowledge and baseline information to detect biodiversity alterations and identify their causes (anthropogenic and natural), predicting change in order to avert or mitigate its impact, and restoring the diversity of the Galapagos ecoregion.
The Galapagos Islands are a storehouse of unique terrestrial and marine biological diversity, as well as a natural laboratory for the study of evolution and speciation, and the development of Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection.
But while the Galapagos biodiversity is unique, the threats to its natural systems are not. Competition, predation, the diseases brought by invasive alien species, and habitat alteration have wiped out or reduced island populations in the past, and continue to threaten the region’s future as human activity spreads and multiplies.
The laureate project comprises a series of terrestrial restoration programmes of accredited success. Two lines of action were to prove especially productive: the restoration of ecosystems through the control and eradication of alien invasive species, and the recovery of key populations. The first has led to significant advances in the eradication of rock doves, the kudzu vine, two species of bramble, pigs, donkeys, fire ants and cats; in the control of the cottony cushion scale pest, via the introduction of the Australian ladybird; and in mitigating the effects of goat browsing on island vegetation. The second focuses on the recovery of the Española Giant Tortoise and Pinzón Giant Tortoise by means of captive breeding and reintroduction, and on possible strategies for recovering the Opuntia cactus. As a result of these endeavours, the biodiversity of the Galapagos ecoregion remains the most intact of any oceanic archipelago in the world.
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