I 88 C. SKOTTSBERG 



that the day is near when Juan Fernandez will become "el balneario habitual de 

 los sonadores del mundo" (p. 229) and when large passenger planes will land on 

 the big aerodrome on Masatierra. At present not even a tiny plane is able to land 

 without crashing, but there are some places where an autogiro could come down 

 safely. The roadstead in Cumberland Bay is so far the only place where a plane 

 (a Catalina) has alighted, but with a high wind and a heavy swell the situation 

 gets unpleasant. The level land by the sea in front of the colony is the only 

 place where a small airport could be constructed. Its length will be 500 m or, if 

 the front slope of Cordon Central with the old prison caves be blasted, perhaps 

 800 m, but the buildings belonging to the fishing companies and a good many 

 other houses would have to disappear. On the table-land of Masafuera, about 

 1200 m above sea level, another airport could be built at enormous cost, another 

 one, probably a little cheaper, on the Loberia plain. Neither would serve any 

 sensible purpose if not a strategic one. Let us limit our plans of making Juan 

 Fernandez a popular goal of the tourist to an improvement of the communications 

 and to a couple of modest guest-houses — and to impress on the visitor that 

 he finds himself in a sanctuary where he has to keep his hands off. An unknown 

 number of plants and animals barely manage to hold their own, and obviously 

 many are on the verge of extinction, pronouncedly stenotopic as they are. The 

 trail to Portezuelo ought to be improved and kept in repair, for everybody will 

 want to see Selkirk's Lookout, to read the memorial tablet and behold the grand 

 views. And there is no point within easy reach where the endemic flora is — or 

 was, at least, in 191 7 — better displayed. 



If we want to preserve a unique living world of very great scientific interest 

 and as such belonging not to a single country but to the whole world, these are 

 the rules: 



to limit plantations and fields to the waste-land on the north side of Masa- 

 tierra; 



to encourage gardening for local consumption; 



to declare war on the introduced noxious weeds, goats and rabbits; 



greatly to reduce the number of domestic animals and to keep them out of 

 the native forest; 



to reduce the number of wild goats on Masafuera and keep it on a minimum 

 or, which would be the best, to exterminate them; 



to teach the inhabitants not to disturb Nature's equilibrium; 



to enforce the Law of Jan. 31, 1935, by appointing a sufficient number of 

 salaried supervisors and guardians. 



Human influence has cut its mark deep and it has changed the natural scen- 

 ery greatly without adding to its beauty. In part this has been inevitable, if man 

 was to live on the islands, but there has been and is too much senseless destruc- 

 tion. This is the more to be regretted as the welfare of the population need not 

 at all depend on either breeding cattle or sheep-farming. Once the lobster meant 



