Paul Hunter Zaid #2

     As there were no new readings presented or discussed in class this past week due to the weather I had decided to delve deeper into my interest of the Galapagos Islands and its relationship to modern day Environmentalism. Of course the biggest threat to the islands are that of human beings, with the increase of tourism and immigration to the islands to support this industry. Not only are humans impacting the islands with their strain on the natural resources of the islands, but so are many of the animals, insects, and plants that they have brought with them either deliberately or unintentionally. The islands have been under constant threat from goats, cats, dogs, fish, plants, and insects that are introduced to the islands fragile and isolated ecosystem. Major efforts in the past decade have removed these foreign inhabitants by eradicating them from the islands. Many people view environmentalism as dealing with the preservation and saving of a species, not the killing and removal of a species to stop the harm they are causing an environment in which they are not native to. The main point that I'm driving at is environmentalism takes many different forms of initiatives to preservation. Not only do we need to keep an open mind to solving problems, we also need to be creative with ideas to preserving all ecosystems on our planet that are threatened.