By Julian Smith
Two hundred years ago a young scientist set off on a voyage of scientific discovery that would inspire the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Charles Darwin—and sketch a road map for the future of conservation.
At 13,000 feet in Ecuador’s Andean highlands, two bumpy hours’ drive from Quito, stands a decrepit building with an astonishing view. Sitting on land The Nature Conservancy helps protect, the structure is crumbling, and its rafters are covered with guano deposited by two resident owls. Outside, the ice-covered vision of the 18,874-foot Antisana Volcano, just four miles away, is enough to stop conversation.
A plaque by the door explains why the building has not been torn down: In 1802, one of the most famous scientists in the world slept here, no doubt having marveled at the same view.
The Prussian naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt was midway through a five-year, 6,000-mile voyage of scientific discovery through Latin America that would revolutionize thinking in fields from astronomy to zoology. Charles Darwin himself called Humboldt “the greatest scientific traveler who ever lived,” and when Darwin set off on his own journey aboard the Beagle three decades later, he took a copy of Humboldt’s seven-volume travel narrative. . . .
http://magazine.nature.org/features/humboldts-new-world.xml
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