After three years of journeying with a scientific expedition on HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin had alighted on the gloriously alive yet isolated islands that were known as Galapagos, 500 miles off the shores of Ecuador. He was particularly fascinated by the Galapagos birds: they were all finches, and yet all differed slightly from one another. As he noted: "One might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends."
One feature that particularly caught his attention was their extra large beaks. The nuts of the Galapagos were especially large and hard and Darwin came to think that the finches who had been born with tough beaks that could crack these nuts had thrived, while the finches with smaller beaks, less able to access the food of the islands, had died away. Out of this idea was born the theory of Evolution - one of the most revolutionary ideas in human history.
Of course, the Galapagos Islands, like so many other precious places, are now trampled over by thousands of tourists a year: the small tourist groups that carefully wash their feet in order not to accidentally bring in invasive species were joined this year by a massive cruise ship carrying more than a 1,000 people and the Galapagos Conservation Society fears more will come next year. The BBC is screening a series about the islands which starts on Friday at 9pm, and you can contact the Galapagos Conservation Trust for more information about sustainable tourism on the islands.
