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With Amex Platinum, you can enjoy access to dedicated card member entrances at select events because skipping the line makes you the star of game day. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms apply. Learn more at americanexpress.com slash with Amex. Card member entrance access not limited to Amex Platinum card. Imagine a place so pristine and fragile. You want to take care of it, but your presence is already causing an impact.

That's one way to look at the Galapagos Islands. And it's true whether you're visiting as a tourist or whether you make your living there as a fisher. Back in 2017, I lived in Quito, Ecuador, and dreamed of hopping on a two-hour flight to the Baltra Airport to visit this beautiful cluster of islands in the Pacific, home to some of the most unique marine species in the world. Sadly, I never got a chance to go.

The Galápagos are the source of Darwin's theory of evolution. They are a living laboratory for scientists to this day. The islands were first documented by accident in 1535 by the Spanish and became a hub for pirates who introduced species that later became plagues, like goats. This is Carolina Loza León, a reporter for today's episode. She's based in Quito.

By the 1830s, as countries in Latin America gained independence, Ecuador annexed the Galapagos as part of their territory. Because of the harsh conditions in the islands, the Ecuadorian government sent settlers and political prisoners there. Most famously, British biologist Charles Darwin explored the Galapagos Islands aboard the HMS Beagle in 1835. Never before had we seen lizards that swam and fed in the open sea.

Then European migrants started arriving in the 1920s.

Ecuadorians from the mainland migrated as more services became available as well. Most of them were interested in nature and some were misfits. There were also people working in tourism. I've always found it surprising to hear about the Galapagos abroad.

Usually, people do not even know that they are part of Ecuador. They want to go because they're either interested in nature or because back in their country, it is perceived as a luxurious destination. It has a mystique to it and a draw that even England's Prince Philip remarked on back in a 1967 documentary. With proper conservation and sensible management, these remarkable islands could become one of the most fascinating attractions ever.

to the growing number of people all over the world who are interested in natural history. Most people think there are no people living on the islands. But not only do people live there, there's also a rich history of them depending on nature in order to make a living. You're listening to The Catch, a show from foreign policy about the seafood we eat and the impact it can have on our world. I'm Ruxandra Guiri.

For the past three seasons, I've traveled to different parts of the world to learn about fisheries, whether they be squid, shrimp, and then cod. And each time, I've found communities that are facing major global and environmental shifts and are working to adapt, and yet keep doing what sustains them, fishing. And so this season, we're going global. We're going to tie together many of these dynamics from reporters all over the world,

We're going to be hearing from South Africa, Indonesia, Maine here in the U.S., and to kick it off, Ecuador. In this episode, we'll look into fishing in the Galapagos, particularly a sea cucumber gold rush, which got out of hand and forced a reckoning. Okay, now let's turn it back to Carolina in Ecuador. ♪

On a sunny yet chilly day in Quito, I went earlier than usual to the airport. I got the Galapagos National Park transit card, extra luggage screening to make sure I didn't carry food, seeds or animals. I wasn't traveling to just another destination in Ecuador, and I was reminded of that constantly right before arrival.

So I'm on arrival in the Galapagos and there's a lot of tourists always stopping, always shocked by the WANAs.

by the wildlife as soon as they get off the tarmac which is it's funny to see how they're taking photographs um be all on how all of this is new for them and there's stories from all over the world like i've heard on flights to galapagos always italians russians french people from asia it's quite interesting to see this

and the nonchalance of the local residents that go in a different queue and speed through because they just want to get home. For Ecuadorians, their relationship to the Galapagos is complicated. People without relatives here have no means to visit, and it can be very expensive. What most of us don't think about is that if you eat seafood and have been in mainland Ecuador, at some point, unknowingly, you consume fish that was caught in Galapagos waters.

When I was 12 and visited for the first time, I loved its uniqueness, how each island was so different. The sea lions, the sea. I had the chance to go again 13 years ago. That's when I really noticed the changes. I could barely recognize Santa Cruz Island, the sleepy little town I had instantly adored as a kid. The small shops that dotted the main road when I visited were now one of many.

The Fisherman's Square, where fishers brought their fresh catch on the main road, was gone. This town is very, it's a main island, and sometimes one forgets that you're in such a fragile ecosystem. Most of the services now can be found in the city, from pharmacies, hospitals. It's definitely the central spot for the people here in the area.

in the Galapagos. The last time I was here, I also heard about the so-called sea cucumber fever. I saw them in shallow water when I went snorkeling. They're about eight inches long and have leathery brown skin. They live on the seafloor eating sand. So my mission is to figure out why people went crazy over this strange marine species and how fishing and tourism can coexist in one of South America's most famous spots.

So I get the lay of the land from a local. Rodrigo Jacome is from mainland Ecuador. Decades ago, he came to the Galapagos looking for opportunities, just like so many had before. He's a tall and friendly man who knows everyone as he walks down the street. Now in his late 60s, he tells me he started working as a tour guide on cruises.

And now he's retired in his coffee farm. He tells me that when he got here, there was no fresh water on the island and little tourism. It was like living in the wild. He told me about depending on rainwater and drinking coffee on brackish water. The Galapagos are a beautiful but harsh place to live. Volcanic rock makes it difficult to grow food.

Rodrigo told me how he had to wait months for a ship to arrive with some basic goods from the mainland, such as soap or oil. There are 18 islands that make up the Galapagos, but only four are populated. Santa Cruz, San Cristobal, Isabela, and Floriana.

Each one has its own unique landscape, from sandy beaches and rocky coastlines to volcanic craters and lush highlands. This diverse geography supports a wide variety of endemic species. Rodrigo says that by the time he arrived in 1985, there were about 4,000 people in Santa Cruz Island. The problem started in 1998 when the Special Law of Galapagos was created.

Rodrigo says there were no issues moving here at the time, and the Ecuadorian government encouraged migration from the mainland. The problems, he said, started in 1998, when people started coming in larger numbers. The islands are fragile and couldn't sustain such a jump in the population. All of a sudden, people were told they were the issue. But also, the environmentalists have a lot of guilt, that they didn't know how to manage in a way

Rodrigo's starting to get a little agitated now, as he tells me there was no real plan for conservation either. The Galapagos National Park had been created in 1959, and in 1964, the non-profit Charles Darwin Foundation started working here. But the focus was on researching the species and not taking a holistic approach to engaging everyone who lived there.

He sounds angry about feeling ignored and overlooked. But the balance shifted by the early 80s, when Ecuadorians realized there was a market for sea cucumbers in Asia. So now, this weird creature was fast becoming a ticket out of poverty. Rodrigo says it was a phenomenon, a fishing boom.

By the late 80s and early 90s, Ecuadorians from the mainland were moving to the Galapagos for one thing, the sea cucumber. It was almost like a drug, he says. Everyone saw that you could make a lot of money by catching sea cucumbers. It isn't traditionally eaten in Ecuador, but it's relatively easy to collect, as it lays on the ocean floor.

Asian middlemen came willing to pay good money, 50 cents of a dollar per cucumber, and they would take them to China where it's considered a delicacy. Word spread fast, and so this somewhat sleepy community that had supported a small-cut fishery was now sea cucumber central. Good for the fishers, but what about the larger ecosystem? I'm headed to the Charles Darwin Station, a research facility.

It's on a dirt road. Its offices scatter around several buildings facing the beach. Scientists are walking in and out, some carrying diving gear. Jorge Ramirez is a Mexican marine biologist who's been doing research in the Galapagos for the past 13 years. He's wearing a Charles Darwin Foundation dark blue polo. Jorge gives me the lay of the land.

The Galapagos National Park is the archipelago and the marine reserve. It is a multiple-use reserve, so fishing is allowed only by local artisanal fishers. Sea cucumber is the most important catch to this day. Jorge says that the Galapagos Marine Reserve was established in 1998 as a response to overfishing.

The reserve restricted access and put limits to the amount of people who could live on the islands. He says Ecuadorians from the mainland could not move to the Galapagos. Another reason they needed to come up with restrictions had to do with protecting humans, not just the ecosystem. Hothead tells me how the divers would typically set out on a small boat, using an air compressor they connected to a hose.

they could spend hours breathing through that hose and collecting sea cucumbers. When things went wrong, the results were fatal. As the sea cucumber fever went on, competition grew.

That same year, in 1998, the so-called Galápagos Law brought in restrictions. Despite the new restrictions, the sea cucumber population kept declining at an alarming rate. So much so that in the early 2000s, Jorge says many were concerned about a total species collapse.

This went on for years until park authorities established a five-year ban from 2016 to 2021. After the ban, park authorities came up with a monitoring model, which is still in use today. The sea cucumber fishing season starts around August or September, with quotas set to about 600,000 sea cucumbers. The season closes when that quota is reached. Now all sea cucumbers must be brought fresh from the sea,

register in front of park authorities and they must be larger than 8 inches in length. The restrictions took some time getting used to. It's a sunny morning in Santa Cruz Island. I walk past gift shops and tourist agencies. Sea lions lay around on some benches in the pier. Most of the tourists have left on day trips and it is very quiet. I'm here to meet Luis Bonilla, a fisher who leads a fishermen's union in Santa Cruz.

He suggests that we sit under the shade of a tree. Luis tells me he did it all, legal and illegal fishing, and I'm surprised to hear how candid he's been. He caught species he knew he shouldn't have, like shark and sea cucumber. It was his mistake, he says.

He's taken workshops on sustainable fishing and has learned since about the impact that unregulated and illegal fishing can have. Nowadays, Luis wants to be a part of the solution. He tells me how he now reports cases of illegal fishing to park officials. What's more, he's become a liaison between fishers and park authorities, and he encourages fines.

Despite all the regulations, he still sees the impact of overfishing in the islands. Luis describes how back in the day, you could see sea cucumbers lining the seabed like a quilt. Even though he isn't a scientist, he knew it was an important species in the ecosystem because they filter the ocean floor.

Today, in those same places where the sea cucumber has been decimated, Luis is able to catch lobsters. He says that catching other species is too difficult. Without the sea cucumbers, seaweed has overtaken the seafloor, and the seaweed can reach up to three feet in those areas, making it harder to catch anything else.

When he isn't fishing, Luis helps the national park monitor the sea cucumber. We'll look into this fisher-scientist collaboration and how it's working in our next episode. Everything out at sea is always shifting, so they can't predict quotas.

But the hope is to have a relatively stable fishing quota that allows fishers to catch and be given a good price so they can make a living without impacting the ecosystem. We'll also talk about the Galapagos' other big industry, tourism, and why some fishers are supplementing their income by catering to visitors to make ends meet. And that's it for this episode of The Catch.

Support for this podcast comes from foreign policy readers and also in part by the Walton Family Foundation. Our production team includes Rosie Julin, Rob Sachs, and Lily Ogburn. Special thanks to our reporter, Carolina Loza-Leon.

If you like what you're hearing, please consider leaving a review and subscribe on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts or head over to foreignpolicy.com where you can listen to our other podcasts and sign up to our newsletter.

Oh, and one last thing before we go. The catch is having a live taping coming up in New York City on September 26th to coincide with the U.N. General Assembly. It'll be a discussion about marine protected areas like the one in the Galapagos that Carolina reported on.

During our live event, we'll be taking a look at the big picture of what it takes to protect endangered species and ocean ecosystems from threats such as climate change, illegal fishing, and other forces. We'll talk ways that marine protected areas can be designed more collaboratively with fishing communities to foster ocean stewardship.

The discussion will also touch on how different parts of the world have dealt with competing priorities for how coastal land and waters should be used. And we'll get into the impact that marine protected areas can have on local communities, specifically when it comes to things like food security and social justice. So join us for what should be a great live discussion tying together many of the important themes of this season.

To secure a ticket, follow our show notes for a link. We'd love to have you there.

And one final, final thing. We've locked in some great experts for this discussion, but we're still looking for a fisher who has experience with marine protected areas, who's either based in New York or can be in New York in September. And if you are that person, or if you know someone who is, please contact us at podcastsatforeignpolicy.com. That's podcast in plural at foreignpolicy.com. We'll also have that email address in our show notes.

Okay, that's it for now. I'm Ruxandra Cuiri. Thank you for listening.