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Easter Island
Could This Happen to the Whole Planet?
Island Geography• Located in the Pacific Ocean –27 degrees south of the
equator –2200 miles off the coast of
Chile• Sixty-three square miles • 3 extinct volcanoes
Island Inhabitants Arrived
• Easter Island are of Polynesian stock –(DNA extracts from skeletons
have confirmed this)–Most inhabitants from the
Marquesas or Society islands, • Arrived as early as 318 AD
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Ecology before Islanders arrived
• Island was forested• teeming with land birds• productive breeding site for seabirds in the Polynesia region.
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Culture
Culture• Most famous features
are enormous stone statues called moai– 288 of which once
stood• Estimated that 50 to
150 people were needed to drag them across the countryside– sleds and rollers made
from the island's trees.
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What Happened?
• The resource needs of the growing population had outpace the island's capacity to renew itself ecologically. – 1400s the forests had
been entirely cut– rich ground cover eroded
away– springs had dried up– vast flocks of birds
disappeared.
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– no logs to build canoes for fishing
– depleted bird and wildlife food sources
– declining crop yields because of the erosion of good soil
– nutritional intake of the people plummeted
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Culture Collapse• First famine then
cannibalism• Island could not feed the
chiefs, bureaucrats & priests – triggered a cultural
collapse.• 1700-population dropped
between 1/4 and 1/10th its former number
• Many statues were toppled during “clan wars” of the 1600 and 1700’s.
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• The social and cultural collapse continued following the arrival of the Europeans.
• European slavers – raped and murdered
the islanders, – introduced small pox
and other diseases– brutally removed the
natives to mainland South America
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Could this be our Future?
• Easter Island's treeless landscape is perhaps the most crucial piece of evidence – theory of ecocideIs our planet
committing ecocide?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfbQA-Krx9Q&feature=related
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• Could the same thing that happened to Easter Island happen to the whole planet Earth?
• Are we committing ecocide?
• What are your thoughts and concerns?
• What are 3 more questions you have about Easter island?
