Rakan Zahawi: Giant ambitions at the Charles Darwin Foundation

About this episode

David Oakes interviews Rakan Zahawi about ambitious ecological recovery efforts at the Charles Darwin Foundation, focusing on the Floreana Project.

Following on from two episodes recorded on San Cristóbal Island, this episode finds David having set sail across the Galapagos archipelago for Santa Cruz; destination: the headquarters of the Charles Darwin Foundation — the research institution founded alongside the Galápagos National Park, and still at the heart of how science becomes conservation on the islands. Joining David is Rakan Zahawi , CDF’s relatively new Chief Executive. Rakan is a botanist and restoration ecologist who arrived after running botanical gardens in Hawaii and Costa Rica, and now helps steer one of the most ambitious ecological recovery efforts anywhere on the planet. At the centre of this conversation is the Floreana Project: a multi-decade initiative to restore the Galapagos island of Floreana to a natural state, one pre-dating humankind’s arrival in the Galapagos. By tackling invasive species at scale and rebuilding ecosystem function from the ground up, Rakan explains why removing cats and rodents is only the start, and how quickly native wildlife can rebound when pressure lifts — from finches and reptiles to the startling reappearance of the Galápagos Rail for the first time since Darwin’s 1835…

People in this episode

Host: David Oakes

Guest: Rakan Zahawi

Topics covered

• ecological restoration
• invasive species
• biodiversity
• Galapagos Islands
• conservation efforts

Keywords

• Galapagos
• Floreana Project
• Rakan Zahawi
• ecological recovery
• invasive species
• biodiversity
• Charles Darwin Foundation
• giant tortoises

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Charles Darwin Foundation

Places: Galapagos, Floreana, Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal Island

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