“In
just a few centuries, the people of
From
archaeological evidence, it is believed that for about 30,000 years the island
was covered by subtropical forest as on some of the other islands in the South
Pacific such as its neighbors
The most common tree was a palm that grew up to 80 feet tall and 6 feet in diameter with edible nuts and sweet sap. Large numbers of birds lived and bred on the island. Porpoises, seals, and fish lived in the ocean. Streams of fresh water flowed from the mountains to the sea.
The first humans were Polynesians who arrived in small boats from other islands 1600 years ago. They found an island paradise. With plenty of food and shelter the population grew quickly. People were healthy and strong. They had time to carve large stone statues called moai and haul them on tree trunks across the island. Chiefs and families competed to show off who had the most and largest statues. They ate nuts and syrup from the palm trees. They cut down the trees to make canoes, haul the large stone statues, clear land for gardens and houses, and burn for firewood.
Polynesians
After they cut down all the trees, the soil washed away, the streams filled with silt and dried up, and the sun and wind damaged their crops. They could no longer make canoes to escape from the island or go fishing. After they ate all the birds and animals on the island they began to eat each other. They sheltered in caves for protection from their enemies and to keep warm in the cold, wet, winters. They killed the chiefs and rich families and knocked down their statues. The population crashed from 20,000 to 2000, as ninety percent of the people died.
Statues and Petroglyphs Remains of a stone structure
A few of the strong young men began to compete each year by swimming two miles across the cold, shark-infested sea to an island where sea birds nested to collect an egg. This was called the “birdman cult”
Islands of the Birdmen
In 1722 when the first Europeans discovered the island it was a treeless wasteland. When the second group of Europeans visited the island 50 years later, the people were small, weak and hungry. They begged the Europeans for wood. There were no wild animals larger than insects. Their few leaky canoes were made of bush branches held together with fine threads and they had to spend half the time bailing water out of the boats. The Europeans wondered how the islanders could have carved and moved the huge statues.
Later
slave traders captured the Easter islanders and took them to work in the South
American mines. Most of the remaining few
died of from diseases brought by the Europeans.
Ranchers from
Ranch horses grazing near a moai
A tourist attraction
Could this story happen to Earth? Like the islanders, we have nowhere else to go after we use up our resources. With Earth’s population growing we need more land, food, energy, water, and other resources.
Population Growth
If trees were so important
to the islanders why did they cut down the last trees? According to Jared Diamond
it probably happened gradually. “In the meantime, any islander who tried to
warn about the dangers of progressive deforestation would have been overridden
by vested interests of carvers, bureaucrats, and chiefs, whose jobs depended on
continued deforestation. Our
Do you know what your neighborhood was like 30 years ago? 100 years ago?
"Only after the last tree has been cut down.
Only after
the last river has been poisoned.
Only after the
last fish has been caught.
Only then will you find that money cannot
be eaten."
- Cree Indian Prophecy