Easter Island: A Lesson for Us Today?

Easter Island is a 64 square mile island in the Pacific Ocean. Since 1888 Easter Island has been a province of Chile. The Chilean goverment has declared the entire island a historical monument. Easter Island is most famous for its large rock statues called Moai. The Moai standing on the island are evidence of a once thriving civilization. The history of Easter Island carries a valuable lesson for our modern world today.

Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui was once a beautiful thriving island. There were forests of palm, haunau, and toromirs trees and an abundance of grasses, plants and shrubs. History shows there were at least six species of land birds and Easter Island was the breeding site for many sea birds. The soil was fertile and the island was a virtual paradise.

People started colonizing the island in about 400 CE. They brought crop plants such as yams, sweet potatoes, bannnanas, and sugar cane. They also brought chicken and rats to the island. These familys started clearing the forests and planting crops right away. However Rapa Nui had a limited area and a limited number of natural resources such as trees. Archaeologists have found that by 800 C.E. deforestation of the island was well underway. Between 1200 and 1500 C.E. the production of the Moai was at its peak. Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg says there was " one statue for every 7 to 9 people at peak population estimates." By the 1600's the last of the forests disappear and the native birds were extinct. Erosion was now overtaking the island and the streams of fresh water were begining to dry up. By the 1700's the population of the once paradisiac island had plummeted to about 2,000 people and many were starving. In 1722 Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen was the first European to discover Rapa Nui, he named it Easter Island. He described the barreness of the island and the poverty of its people. Between 1804-1863 traditional Rapa Nui culture had disappeared and by 1872 there were only 111 indigeous people were left on the island.

How is Easter Island a lesson for society today? The people of the island came to a virtual paradise, however they didn't take into account that the islands resources were not renewable. The animals and the trees did not disappear overnight. The people progressively used up all that the island had to offer untill it was gone. Our entire earth, though larger, is like an island. Once the natural resources on the earth are used up there is no way for humankind to renew them. What will happen to the human race if we continue to manipulate our enviroment past its limits. Will we become like the people of Easter Island, Extinct? What do you think, are people today learning the lesson that history has given us?