CAMPBELL: At first glance, the Galapagos Islands don’t look like a paradise in peril. They teem with astonishing wildlife, much of it unique to the archipelago.

One hundred and seventy years ago these creatures inspired the naturalist Charles Darwin to develop the theory of evolution. Almost all the species he saw are still there today but there’s now a darker side to the picture.

The human inhabitants here are engaged in a very different battle for survival of the fittest and it’s all about what this place should be – a wildlife haven to be protected for the benefit of the planet or a resource to be exploited for the benefit of a few.

These are some of the men who want to exploit it, the island’s militant and powerful commercial fishermen. In recent months they’ve staged a series of violent protests against the National Park Administration charged with protecting the land and the sea life. The dispute has effectively crippled the park’s conservation programs. Rangers have been beaten, scores of the park’s best workers have been forced to leave. Anti-poaching patrols have been halted.

Until recently Fernando Ortiz was directly of the Park’s marine reserve.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: Morale? There’s not such a thing I would say. From those of us who are seriously committed to conservation, for those of us who have been, have been part of this place for a long time, right now it’s like we’re just touching the bottom. You know I don’t think things have been any worse ever in the National Park.

CAMPBELL: Not so long ago Galapagos was a calm and peaceful place. It’s an outpost of Ecuador, a turbulent South American nation with a history of coups and crises but until recently, the island seemed immune from the troubles of the mainland.

Biologist and former boat captain Godfrey Merlen moved here in the early 70’s to immerse himself in nature.

GODFREY MERLEN: It was almost a sort of unknown place and especially in Ecuador, as it was just an outpost of backwater with very little economy. There were a few cows, which were sent to the mainland, there was a bit of salted fish exported but it was very very low key. It was very small boats, bottom fishing, very few people.

CAMPBELL: But today, Galapagos is a bustling community dominated by money. There’s a booming tourism industry with more than a hundred thousand visitors each year. The islands are now surrounded by an armada of cruise boats and more than twenty thousand people live in small towns alongside the national park.

Almost a thousand of them are professional fishermen, lured by soaring demand for one of Galapagos’ most valuable species – sea cucumbers. Prized as an aphrodisiac in Asia, they can sell to upmarket restaurants for up to six hundred dollars a kilogram.

GODFREY MERLEN: People have seen dreams in Galapagos, on the mainland of Ecuador they’ve seen a way out of their poverty and their problems there and you can understand that they are people who have never had anything are, you know this is, this is, this is, this is a gold field and I think to this day Galapagos is seen as a place paved with gold and a place to solve all your problems.

CAMPBELL: The gold field is the marine reserve, the world’s largest after the Great Barrier Reef. That’s put fishermen on a collision course with the National Park. The past decade has seen repeated clashes as park rangers try to limit the sea cucumber quota, culminating last year when the park tried to ban the annual free month season. In protest, fishermen on the main island of Santa Cruz invaded the National Park headquarters. Their leader was the Fishing Cooperative President, Rogelio Gyuacha.

ROGELIO GYUACHA: The situation for the fishermen is very difficult right now in spite of the fact that they have always been very patriotic and fought for sovereignty here in Galapagos. They’ve passed laws to cause the fishing sector to disappear in Galapagos, so the fishing sector has had no choice

CAMPBELL: To the rangers’ dismay the Government gave in to the fishermen’s demands and overturned the ban, setting a quota of four million sea cucumbers. The effect was to all but wipe out the species. Fishermen collected fewer than three million cucumbers before the stocks were exhausted.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: This year we just documented the economical extinction of the sea cucumber. We don’t have sea cucumbers any longer. They are gone. We warned them about the, you know the, the consequences of this. They would have to go deeper, they would have to stay longer, they would make less money and that happened. Actually this year we had a record for decompression sickness.

CAMPBELL: It might seem strange that fishing could be favoured over conservation in a World Heritage site but the issues here are more about politics then wildlife and here’s why. Galapagos is not just a national park. It’s Ecuador’s smallest province, giving this tiny community two representatives in the national congress.

Now a thousand kilometres away in the capital Quito, the government has such a slim majority it depends on the vote of the pro fishing congressman here and that according to some conservationists has made fishermen one of the island’s most protected species.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: They have lots of political leverage. Even though the money they produce accounts for only about 20% of what the Galapagos Islands produce gross income to the country. They have the right, as we say here, the right Godfather, so yeah they have much more power than everybody else.

CAMPBELL: So every time there’s a protest, the government caves in?

FERNANDO ORTIZ: Exactly. Always. I mean it has not, there is no exception to that rule.

CAMPBELL: The militant fishing leader, Rogelio Gyuacha, is on the of the men the government now depends on for survival. He’s an independent congressman but he’s consistently voted with the government in return for political favours. He insists he represents the whole community.

ROGELIO GYUACHA: I think differently. I don’t advocate for just one group of people but my interest as an MP is for all of us here in Galapagos to have a good standard of living and respect the laws of the province.

CAMPBELL: Critics claim he only represents himself, being one of the few fishermen who can afford a large boat and employ a crew to work it.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: He is a businessman of fishing. OK he has not been on a fishing boat for years. He doesn’t know anymore you know, what it means to be out and do some fishing.

CAMPBELL: Most of the licensed fishermen are small operators using handlines to catch fish and primitive air compressors to dive for more valuable catch like lobsters and sea cucumbers. For all their political clout, most struggle to make a living. The reason is that the government has allowed more fishermen to come here then conventional fishing can support.

Tity Torres and his wife Yvonne are typical of the local fishing community. Most days the catch is not enough to even cover the cost of fuel. Today, after three hours at sea, they’ve caught only one fish.

IVONNE TORRES: A complete fish per pound would be like a dollar per pound.

CAMPBELL: So it’s not much for a morning’s work is it?

IVONNE TORRES: No for three people especially.

CAMPBELL: With debts to pay and a family to suppose they’re relying on whatever is left of the island’s sea cucumbers.

IVONNE TORRES: As the wife of a fisherman I will tell you we depend on the sea cucumbers. Whatever my husband makes during the sea cucumber season, thank God we can save and use it for the rest of the year.

CAMPBELL: For years the government has been promising to find alternative jobs for fishermen but they’ve so far been frozen out from the island’s only other industry – tourism. It’s been monopolised by big mainland operators, many with close links to the Ecuadorian Government.

ROGELIO GYUACHA: In Galapagos the reality is that the local community has never benefited from tourism. It’s the kind of tourism that locals don’t even see. They just leave their rubbish and bring price rises – no benefits.

CAMPBELL: Thanks to the tourist boom, housing, food and services are now far more expensive then on the mainland.

GODFREY MERLEN: We’ve reached the situation where we’ve got too many people seeking too few resources, becoming poorer and the cost rising. That situation as I said is, is, is very worrying and potentially a great danger for Galapagos.

CAMPBELL: The National Park has been caught between the voracious demands of the tourism and fishing sectors. The Government has repeatedly interfered with the Park’s management sacking senior staff who try to regulate commercial activity. The Park has had eleven different directors in less than two years.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: Just tell me, how can any institution work, how can any institution you know carry on with any project if they have a new leader every month and a half or so? That is not possible.

CAMPBELL: Park rangers have struggled to continue policing the marine reserve, painstakingly checking boats along fifteen hundred kilometres of coastline and a hundred and thirty three thousand square kilometres of ocean. Even with air patrols it’s been impossible to stop illegal fishing or even gauge how much is going on. The size of some of their seizures suggest it’s become a major illicit industry with fishermen spreading their catch to shark fins, another prized delicacy in Asia.

But Ecuador’s Environment Minister, Fabian Baldiviezo says constant changes to park management have not hindered its operations.

MINISTER FABIAN BALDIVIEZO: The Galapagos National Park has around three hundred people working for it, all of them technically and professionally qualified experts in their respective areas of work and that’s what guarantees the stability of the park. The fundamental work in the park is done by those workers.

CAMPBELL: The rangers disagree. Last September, all but a handful of staff went on strike in protest at the Government’s latest interference. The Minister sacked yet another director replacing him with this man, Fausto Cepeda, a paid advisor to the fishermen.

MINISTER FABIAN BALDIVIEZO: He’s a properly qualified professional who’s equipped to carry out the job

CAMPBELL: But he had been advising the fishermen who are arguably the greatest threat to the environment.

MINISTER FABIAN BALDIVIEZO: Galapagos has a small population so the available jobs are limited, and so in one way or another, the few technical people in the Galapagos are aligned in one way or another to those who make use of the marine reserve.

CAMPBELL: The rangers blockaded the Park, refusing to accept the new appointment. Fausto Cepeda arrived at the barricade backed by an angry crowd of fishermen and their wives.

FERNANDO ORTIZ [telling Fausto Cepeda at gate entry]: Sir we’re not going to change our minds. We’ve been here a few days standing up for this principle and we’re not going to change now. We won’t budge. I’ve got nothing more to say on behalf of my fellow workers here.

CAMPBELL: But the new director decided to force his way in. His fishermen supporters broke down the rangers’ barricade and stormed in with him. The ferocity of the attack stunned the rangers and brought embarrassing international attention to Ecuador’s mismanagement of Galapagos.

The Government withdrew Cepeda’s appointment but as soon as the controversy died down, it went back to its old tricks. We arrived on Galapagos to find the park director had just been changed again. The new man’s first act was to remove Fernando Ortiz as the director of the marine reserve. We arrived to interview him just as he was giving his family the bad news.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: I just got this memo today signed by the director. I was just removed from the marine resources area and I’m going to be stuck in natural resources or so. Basically what they, they have done is froze me. Hopefully the person who is appointed for the marine reserve right now is going to follow up but they’re not going to keep somebody there to do whatever, unless this person does whatever they ask him to do.

CAMPBELL: As staff were reeling from the changes, the Environment Minister arrived from the mainland to lay down a new philosophy for the Park to follow. While stressing the Government’s commitment to conservation, the told rangers they had to think more of the local community.

MINISTER FABIAN BALDIVIEZO: It’s essential to change what’s being done here in Galapagos. Until now conservation has received a lot of attention, but the people’s standard of living has been neglected.

CAMPBELL: It was the trigger for a shake-up that has left the Park in a shambles. Weeks later the new director effectively sacked nearly a third of the Park’s staff. Fernando Ortiz found he’d not only been removed as marine director, along with a hundred and twenty three other rangers, his contract was not renewed. He was out of a job.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: They don’t want to have anybody there who they cannot control, anybody who’s going to be doing things legally or anybody who, who’s going to really you know assume a position that can be read as conservation. You know they just want some puppet to do whatever they want them to do and that’s it. That’s not me that’s for sure.

CAMPBELL: The chaos has left the Marine Reserve at the mercy of poachers. With no marine director and a drastic shortage of rangers, sea patrols were suspended. It’s now questionable if the Park will again have the ability or the will to protect the environment.

FERNANDO ORTIZ: The National Park Service has built up a reputation because of what it has done in this marvellous environment. All of that is going to go into the sewers because again of a political circumstance.

CAMPBELL: And more trouble is looming. Fishermen are now demanding the right to use environmentally dangerous long-lines. Many warn they’ll be violence if the park tries to stop this year’s sea cucumber season.

IVONNE TORRES: If they don’t get the sea cucumber, there’s going to be a social problem. They wont have enough for a living and I don’t know what’s going to happen in my family or other families of fishermen.

CAMPBELL: The archipelago will remain a place of wonder for anyone who comes here and dedicated rangers will do their best to protect it but there are real fears the ongoing disruption risks destroying what makes Galapagos unique.

GODFREY MERLEN: Galapagos is one of the very few places left on this planet which has virtually all of its original inhabitants in tact and just for that reason they’re worth looking after. I think there’s something deeply philosophical about the atmosphere of Galapagos. It’s difficult to explain, impossible to explain, but I think the world will be a sadder and a more aggressive place without places like Galapagos.