Habitar Galapagos

andes.info.ec 

Habitar Galapagos photographs by Javier Andrade and text by Pedro A. Cantero y Esteban Ruiz Ballesteros, is the most beautiful publication that I have seen about the Galapagos Islands.  It came across my desk at the library one day and I was immediately captivated by the intimacy of the photography and how the magic of islands is captured from an anthropological perspective.  I haven't seen a single book here that focuses so strongly on photographing the inhabitants of the islands and attempts to tell some of their story.

Most photo-essay/coffee table type books are filled with images of the wildlife here with the occasional distant image of tourists, fisherman, or park guides.  However, this book literally gets into the faces of the Galapagos inhabitants in a way that no tourist or amateur photographer would ever dare.    

The subtitle of this work is "encrucijada de Naturaleza y Cultura" which means 'the crossroads of nature and culture' and I think it is telling a very timely story about the interaction of the people who live on these islands and their connection to nature. There are so many issues at the moment with the large population growth and the demand that it is putting on the land, the people and the animals here.

Most of the work that is being done here is trying to understand the how a balance can be reached between the needs of the people and the conservation of nature on the islands. The questions abound and the answers are slow coming, however, it is through intimate representations of the Galapagos, like in this book, that the support for the work being done here can spread. As I heard the CDF scientist M. Gardener express in a Sixty Minutes episode, most people think that the point of conservation is to capture nature in a moment of time and not let it budge one way or another but it's possible to have a functioning ecosystem with the majority of its biodiversity in tack. And this can be done in the presence of permanent inhabitants and visitors.

I was inspired to write about this book for a couple reason, first it is just a beautiful book but also I cannot find a copy of this book anywhere!  I have asked in several stores over the last several weeks and no one has it.  I just happened to be talking to Godrey Merlen, who I will be posting about soon, about it and he said he was just recently at a presentation about this topic and he thinks it was by the authors of the book.  So, upon looking for this book for sale online I came across some pictures of a presentation that just occurred on the 22nd of Nov.  In these pictures was a man who was just in the library this past week and I remember thinking to myself, this man looks like someone important.  He had the most wonderfully white hair and beard to match.  In the picture online I could just make out his name on a name card and it said Pedro Cantero -- the main anthropologist that worked on the text of Habitar Galapagos.  I am so frustrated that I didn't know this before and I could have made him more welcome and actually told him how beautiful his book is.  Opportunities lost.

I will post an update if I ever find a copy.  I am going to ask at the Municipal Office where presentation occurred.  Hopefully they know.