Sustainable development linking economy, society, environment
Two thousand three hundred miles to the west of Chile and 1 300 miles to the east of Polynesia’s Pitcairn Islands lies an island that has inspired intense interest for centuries, not for its perfect climate or its untouched beauty, but because it holds a secret, a mystery. Rapa Nui, or Easter Island as it was named by 18th century Dutch explorers, attracts scientists from around the world who come to study its stone statues, called moai. The moai, like the pyramids of ancient Egypt, intrigue and confound us with their sheer size: weighing up to 270 tonnes and as much as 70 feet tall, these massive monolithic figures form an imposing presence: outsized human faces looking out over this remote island and the thousands of miles of ocean that lie beyond it. We marvel at the engineering and wonder at how stone-age
Polynesians managed to erect such immense structures without the use of cranes, metal tools, or large animals.
The creation of statuary of this size and sophistication speaks to the existence of a populous, creative and complex society – one that was well-off enough to support an artisan class. They could afford to allocate
time and resources to the various activities involved in making, transporting and erecting hundreds of statues. Or could they? European explorers who visited the island in the 18th and 19th centuries found a population of only a few thousand, a mere remnant of the statue-building society that came before.
Something had significantly altered life on Rapa Nui. What had at one time been a sub-tropical forest was now a completely deforested island, with at least 22 species of trees and plants extinct. Most wild sources of food were gone overhunting had left Easter with almost no wild bird species. Without trees to make canoes, large fish were inaccessible, leaving only fish that could be caught close to shore.
Evidence shows that these stocks too were depleted. What happened to bring Easter’s civilization to
near extinction, driving its population almost to zero and ending its period of cultural flourishing and creative production? In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond suggests a scenario in which the population continued to exploit resources available to them beyond their limits, in an environment whose ecological fragility made it vulnerable to permanent destruction. The exact cause of the deforestation is still being debated.
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