Cambridge man in Galapagos crisis

A Cambridge graduate is at the heart of the battle to save the fragile ecology of the Galapagos Islands from the oil spill which threatens its future. Dr Robert Bensted-Smith is Director of the Charles Darwin Research Station(CDRS) on the Galapagos Islands. CDRS is the operative branch of the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands, an international, non-governmental, scientific, non-profit organization dedicated to the protection of the Galapagos Islands since 1959.

"An oil spill is a stark symbol of man's clumsiness with the planet, and it is hard to accept that such a calamity has happened here in this long isolated haven for wildlife," said Dr Bensted-Smith, who studied Natural Sciences at St John's and subsequently obtained a PhD in genetics under the supervision of Dr Philip Oliver. "It could have been much worse; our preliminary assessment is that the impacts will be widely scattered but not severe. For that we can thank mainly the currents, wind and sunshine, supplemented by the hard work of people of the Park Service, Darwin Station and local community."

The Foundation urgently requires help. As well as programmes to treat and care for the affected animals, there are programmes to predict and monitor the spread of oil and research the effects of such an event. The latter will be a valuable longer term project but there is an immediate need for help, particularly to finance the enormous expense of this operation. People interested in contributing to the operation should contact the Friends of the Galapagos, the support group for the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands.

A unique heritage
Scientists have long believed the Galapagos Islands to be one of the most important habitats on Earth. Many of the islands' species of birds and plants are unique to the archipelago. In the last four centuries since man discovered the archipelago, goats, cats, rats, dogs and pigs have brought several species to the brink of extinction. Many other oceanic islands systems in the world have succumbed to the invading armies, losing much of their diversity. The Islands are now a world heritage site, managed by the Galapagos National Park Service, in partnership with the Charles Darwin Foundation. The combined efforts of the Park Service and the Research Station have been able to prevent extinction and, in some cases, restore populations of endangered species.

The University of Cambridge and the Galapagos Islands
The connection between the islands and the university stretches back to 1835 when Charles Darwin, a graduate of Christ's College visited the volcanic islands as part of his international voyage on the Admiratly ship, The Beagle. He spent five weeks on the the islands, making collections of the native plants and animals and observing their natural history. These specimens would later provide important evidence for Darwin as he developed his theory of evolution.

The Galapagos plant specimens now reside in the Herbarium at the University of Cambridge. Darwin shipped them back to Cambridge for classification by his mentor, J S Henslow, a fellow of St. John's College, Professor of Botany and the founder of the University's Botanic Garden.

Last year Dr Tim Upson, Superintendent of the Botanic Garden, visited the Islands to assist in a historical reconstruction of Darwin's footsteps. The purpose of the trip was to identify the sites where Darwin found the different plant specimens he collected. The trip was led by the historian Professor David Kohn, a Fellow of Clare Hall involved in the Darwin Correspondence project.

The Darwin Correspondence Project was founded in 1974 by Frederick Burkhardt and Sydney Smith in order to publish the definitive edition of letters to and from Darwin. The Project has staff in both the UK and US, those in the UK being based in Cambridge University Library, England, which houses the largest single collection of around 9,000 letters.

Darwin's correspondence provides historians with an invaluable source of information, not only about his own intellectual development and social network, but about Victorian science and society in general.