enchanted islands

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‘It seems to be a little world within itself’, wrote the young English naturalist Charles Darwin in his diary during the voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, captained by Robert Fitzroy, between 15 September and 20 October 1835. And right he was.
Scattered 850 miles off the coast of Ecuador, this archipelago shaped by volcanic action and tectonic shifts and influenced by the convergence of three major ocean currents, is home for a huge range of wildlife found nowhere else on earth. From colorful iguanas with their mohicans, and giant tortoises with their long necks to graze on the grass, to pelicans at the fish market and noisy sea lions resting on benches in city squares. The diversity between the islands inspired and founded Darwin’s On the Origin of Species paper and his game-changing theory of evolution by natural selection, published 20 years later.
Accidentally discovered in March 1535 by a ship from the Royal Spanish Fleet, the islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean seemed to randomly disappear into the horizon, receiving the name of Enchanted Islands. It was only in 1832 that the archipelago was annexed to Ecuador as a colony, and under the behest of General José Villamil the Empresa de Colonização de Galápagos (Galapagos Colonizing Company) was created. A few months after the integration of the islands as a province, their occupation began and with it farming and livestock, which means the introduction of plants and animals not native to the islands. The colonization process that followed affected these fragile ecosystems and the history woven by humans in the Archipelago led to profound changes.