by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Montrealer Kalifi Ferretti-Gallon visualized the Galapagos Islands as lands far away where animals roam in their own utopia out of human reach.

But then she saw the place.

As a volunteer deckhand and communications officer on the Farley Mowat since mid-June, a ship operated by famed Canadian environmentalist Paul Watson and his Sea Shepherd organization, the 22-year-old plays a minor role in maintaining the unique ecological treasure made famous by Charles Darwin.

Last week, as her ship battled 50-degree rolls, Ferretti-Gallon sent an e-mail over a satellite phone connection about creeping urbanization on one of the planet’s most celebrated natural treasures.

“I expected residents in Galapagos, mainly a certain number of park rangers guarding the Islands from a certain number of ne’er do wells trying to steal a bit of the Enchanted Isles (another name for Galapagos),” she writes after having left the Ecuador-administered island. “What I didn’t expect was to anchor in a proper port, with paved streets, a couple hundred flatbed trucks, a choice of hotels, Internet cafés every three blocks and a rapidly growing community. Puerto Ayora is a town on the verge of becoming a city. It’s one out of a dozen developing communities in Galapagos. There are now two airports and tourism is booming.”

She types from a spot midway between Pitcairn Island and New Zealand in a storm so rough, “I had an almost-lethal encounter with a projectile in the form of a can of tomatoes.”

Poachers, police and shipwrecks

The gang of environmentalists was in the Galapagos to renew a contract between Sea Shepherd and the Galapagos National Park to help protect the unique ecological treasure. Part of the deal sees the organization lend a ship, called the Sirenian, to patrol for poachers and illegal fishermen.

Ferretti-Gallon—daughter of the recently deceased, famed environmentalist Gary Gallon—says the islands are suffering because nobody is putting up cash to hire people to protect nature.

The Toronto-born, Montreal-raised activist found herself in the middle of negotiations with the Ecuadorian authorities, who suffer woeful understaffing problems. “There are almost 500 fishing boats and 1,000 fishermen living in the Galapagos, the number of National Park Employees delegated to (policing them) is three. I can’t see how three could effectively enforce fishing restrictions.”

The crew also witnessed a shipwreck, another harmful offshoot of the increased settlement in the Ecuador-run islands. “Caught by large waves, the ship sunk almost immediately, leaving at least three combustible tanks underwater as well as a good-sized diesel spill,” she writes. “I was sent to ask the Park how we could help. The answer was that there would be no immediate action until a few days later, after the weekend.”

They crew launched their own battle against the spill. “We managed to get oil-absorbing pads and, after a reconnaissance mission, found the place most concentrated with diesel was a mangrove area. Mangroves are nature’s equivalent to filters, but they can’t filter out diesel. Without the proper resources or experience, our action didn’t make much of a difference. For various reasons (one given was that the tide was too high), the Galapagos National Park was unmotivated to act immediately. The diesel smell was still lingering around the mangroves when we left. This isn’t a rare event—Puerto Ayora has several other shipwreck sites.”

Problem animals

Also problematic are the beasts that settlers bring. Feral animals have been overtaking the landscape, where seals are the only native mammal. Now goats, cattle and poultry are common. “It fucks with endemic animal, plant and insect behaviour,” writes Ferretti-Gallon. “In such an isolated and small area, the effects are pretty major. The wild chickens brought parasites which live in the Darwin finches and are killing them. The guava plant was introduced and now guava grows like weeds, killing endemic ferns, eaten by endemic bugs which in turn are eaten by Galapagos birds and reptiles. When fire ants moved into the Galapagos it moved another ant species to the far side of an island and that caused the vegetation there to change.”

Ferretti-Gallon and her mateys continue on their trip that brings them to some of the most remote places on earth, including the forbidding Malpelo Island off Colombia and Pitcairn Island, where 44 mostly Mutiny-on-the-Bounty descendents reside. The Farley Mowat will soon sail to Antarctica to take on Japanese whalers. She expects to be back in Montreal in January.

She points out natural conservation should be embraced by hardheaded scientists as well as animal sentimentalists. “Even if your sympathies do not lie with animals, imagine the possibilities of scientific discoveries eliminated as urbanization interferes with field research.”