ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Wildlife Films and the Making of the Conservation-Ecotourism Nexus in the Galápagos Islands

• In Event: New Perspectives on the History of Science Diplomacy 2

English Abstract

Mythologised as the birthplace of Darwin’s great theory and possessed of a strange coterie of unusually docile and photogenic animals, the Galápagos Islands have seemed to abound in the raw materials of the wildlife filmmaker’s craft. With the exception of the Serengeti National Park, few sites attracted more camera crews than the Galápagos in the formative decades of postwar natural history filmmaking. Yet we lack a filmic history of these storied isles. Careful scholarship has debunked the archipelago’s Darwinian origin story and examined the neocolonial projects of international conservationists as they constructed the islands as a ‘pristine’ natural laboratory of evolution. But the significant power of moving images has received little more than passing reference. In this talk, I examine the flurry of filmmaking that attended the reshaping of the Galápagos as a protected zone, scientific field site, and elite tourism destination around the centenary celebrations of the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Film played a central role in the establishment and consolidation of the Parque Nacional Galápagos by the Ecuadorian state and the creation of the Charles Darwin Foundation, the first and largest NGO operating in the islands. While attending to the travails of producing footage in a remote and often challenging environment, I foreground the uses to which film was put: in promotional efforts, high-level diplomacy, fundraising campaigns, and environmental education programmes.

Author

• Miles Kempton, University of Cambridge