National park

A national park is a park in use for conservation purposes. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state declares or owns. Although individual nations designate their own national parks differently, there is a common idea: the conservation of 'wild nature' for posterity and as a symbol of national pride. An international organization, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and its World Commission on Protected Areas, has defined "National Park" as its Category II type of protected areas.

While this type of national park had been proposed previously, the United States established the first "public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people", Yellowstone National Park, in 1872. Although Yellowstone was not officially termed a "national park" in its establishing law, it was always termed such in practice and is widely held to be the first and oldest national park in the world. The first area to use "national park" in its creation legislation was the US's Mackinac Island, in 1875. Australia's Royal National Park, established in 1879, was the world's third official national park. In 1895 ownership of Mackinac Island was transferred to the State of Michigan as a state park and national park status was consequently lost. As a result, Australia's Royal National Park is by some considerations the second oldest national park now in existence.

Galápagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón, other Spanish name: Islas Galápagos, Spanish pronunciation: [ˈislas gaˈlapaɣos]) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed on either side of the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, 906 km (563 mi) west of continental Ecuador, of which they are a part.

The Galápagos Islands and their surrounding waters form the Galápagos Province of Ecuador, the Galápagos National Park, and the Galápagos Marine Reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of slightly over 25,000.

The islands are famed for their vast number of endemic species and were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

The first recorded visit to the islands happened by chance in 1535, when the Bishop of Panamá Fray Tomás de Berlanga went to Peru to arbitrate in a dispute between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro. De Berlanga was blown off course, though he eventually returned to the Spanish Empire and described the conditions of the islands and the animals that inhabited them. The group of islands was shown and named in Abraham Ortelius's atlas published in 1570. The first crude map of the islands was made in 1684 by the buccaneer Ambrose Cowley, who named the individual islands after some of his fellow pirates or after British royalty and noblemen. These names were used in the authoritative navigation charts of the islands prepared during the Beagle survey under captain Robert Fitzroy, and in Darwin's popular book The Voyage of the Beagle. The new Republic of Ecuador took the islands from Spanish ownership in 1832, and subsequently gave them official Spanish names. The older names remained in use in English language publications, including Herman Melville's The Encantadas of 1854.

Galápagos National Park

Galápagos National Park (Spanish: Parque Nacional Galápagos), established in 1959 and beginning operations in 1968, is Ecuador's first national park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Park history

The government of Ecuador has designated 97% of the land area of the Galápagos Islands as the country's first national park. The remaining 3% is distributed between the inhabited areas of Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Floreana and Isabela.

In 1971, the Galápagos National Park Service had its first Superintendent, 2 officers and 6 park rangers on Santa Cruz Island. In 1974, the Galápagos National Park Service had its first management plan and a team of officials in accordance with the organic structure issued in 1973, with a Superintendent, 2 conservation officers, 40 park rangers to comply with management objectives. On Santa Cruz is the Charles Darwin Research Station.

In 1979 UNESCO declared the Galápagos Islands Natural Heritage for Humanity, making the Park Service through the Superintendent of the Park responsible for performing permanent park conservation and guarding the islands.

Santa Cruz

Santa Cruz (or Santacruz) may refer to:

Places

Africa

Asia and Oceania

India

Philippines

Europe

Portugal

Azores

Island

An island /ˈaɪlənd/ or isle /ˈaɪl/ is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water. Very small islands such as emergent land features on atolls can be called islets, skerries, cays or keys. An island in a river or a lake island may be called an eyot or ait, or a holm. A grouping of geographically or geologically related islands is called an archipelago, e.g. the Philippines.

An island may be described as such despite the presence of an artificial land bridge, for example Singapore and its causeway, or the various Dutch delta islands, such as IJsselmonde. Some places may even retain "island" in their names for historical reasons after being connected to a larger landmass by a wide land bridge, such as Coney Island or Coronado Island. Conversely, when a piece of land is separated from the mainland by a man-made canal, for example the Peloponnese by the Corinth Canal, it is generally not considered an island.

There are two main types of islands: continental islands and oceanic islands. There are also artificial islands.