Easter Island Essay

Both Easter Island and The Lorax have many things in common , one similarity is overuse of resources. In the Lorax the once-ler invaded and cut down all the Truffula trees to make a thread for universal use. While on Easter Island the native people cut down all the palm trees to make canoes but to manly make boards to move there giant statues around that were made out of stone. Both the Lorax and Easter Island used up all their trees so production of their products had to stop, however they do have their differences.

In the article by Jared Diamond, many interesting theories are discussed about Easter Island’s history and decline. Diamond makes connections to the environmental challenges we face today and he compares the catastrophe of Easter Island to our current over consumption of natural resources. While this article makes for an interesting read, much of it is offered from a single perspective and little counter evidence is offered. The author writes in a way that could engage a non-academic audience who may not be interested in counter evidence, or proper referencing. The article lacks credibility due to its narrow scope and conversational diction. At the root of this discussion however, is the notion that the Rapa Nui people were

Adaptive Failure: Easter's End was written by Jared Diamond and was featured in Discover Magazine in August of 1995, this article was mainly written to discuss the rise and fall of the Easter Island civilization. Easter Island is the world's most isolated habitable land, more than 2,200 miles from the nearest continent (South America), and 1,400 miles from the nearest habitable island (Pitcairn). Diamond concluded that the rise of the Easter Island civilization was around 400 A.D. when the Polynesian ancestors of the Easter Island people.

On Easter Day in 1722, Jacob Roggeveen would become the first European to discover what is now known as Easter Island . Before the Dutch explorer first set foot on the island, around the fourth century the first inhabitants arrived . As time goes on, the island ecology decreases rapidly because the population drastically increased. This situation connects to the broad topic of humans and the environment because humans tend to overuse their resources, whether it be plants or animals, to the point where they are unable to recover or to the point of extinction. Mass extinction brought on by the overconsumption of the animals and plants by the Polynesian people who inhabited Easter Island caused the collapse of the society and the land unable to

Easter Island is a remote volcanic island in Polynesia that is well known for its giant moai statues jotted all along it. Many scientists come to Easter Island to study how and why the statues were made. These statues have an average weight of about 20 tons and an average height of 20 feet. Historians are not sure how the native people of Easter Island, also formally known as Rapa Nui, were able to drag and place these large statues in their intended locations, but the most commonly accepted theory is that the people used long pieces of ropes to drag these statues to their places. The Moai statues were carved from the solid volcanic ash of the volcano Rano Raraku. They were then taken to quarries on top of the volcanoes, where the people used ropes to hold the statues at a 45° angle so they could be carved even more in more detail.

Sixty-six square miles into the South East Pacific Ocean, Easter Island can be found. This island is mostly known for its mysterious 32 foot high, 82 ton stone statues that can be found in diverse locations upon the island. These statues known as Moai bring large amounts of tourists to the island, due to their mysterious reasoning. The question that most scientists are asking isn’t about these statues, but about the inhabitants of Easer Island. Where did they go? In the world of environmental science we explain the disappearance of the Polynesian inhabitants of Easter Island with the Tragedy of the Commons, but how does the commons relate to Easter Island?

There are many theories surrounding Easter Island. One popular theory is that the rats caused the island to collapse by eating on the plants. Rats may have hurt the food source but Polynesians also ate them to survive and the finding of rat bones proves just how much they ate them to stay alive. Another theory surrounding Easter Island is the Long Ears vs Short Ears theory. This theory suggests that there was a fight between the short eared and long eared people of Easter Island. There a good deal of theories with little evidence and not that many scientists backing up most of the

ABSTRACT Easter Island, also known by the indigenous name Rapa Nui, is a remote island in the south Pacific Ocean located over 2000 miles off the coast of Chile and over 1250 miles from the nearest Polynesian island. Easter Island is best known for the hundreds of statues scattered across the island, largely because the question of how exactly these statues got to where they rest has stirred the minds of many theorists since the island’s “discovery” by the Dutch Admiral Roggeveen on Easter Sunday of 1722. This very mystery is considered a pillar in Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Diamond claims that the people of Easter Island carelessly abused the trees located on the island, mainly for the purpose

One of the debates that continues today is centered primarily around the deforestation of Rapa Nui. An island once thriving with lush tropical forests. On one side scholar’s Tilburg and Diamond attribute the deforestations to societal conflict and degradation while on the other, Hunt and Lipo argue that deforestation was the result of combined human and rat resource depletion. I believe that Easter Island represents a “tragedy of the commons” scenario in which the isolation of the island, from any other island, contributed to the in-fighting for resources (trees), power (chiefdoms), and prestige (moai), ultimately leading to the extinction of a people and their environment.

The reason on why society on Easter Island collapsed was because the thing that makes it famous; the statues. The resources that were used to bring the statues to life were in fact important for society and environment. As shown in the video, research that was conducted on the land shows that it was an island once filled with many palm trees which is like most tropical islands. However, the palm trees were most likely used and chopped down to move the statues along the island. In our society, gas usage has affected our environment because we use it for cars and the loss of trees negatively impacted their lives and environment which they lived on. These trees were necessities to life because it did not just help in the creation of those statues,

The reading states that one theory for decimation of the Easter Islanders is invaders, and provides three reasons of support. However, the professor states that the disappearance of Eastern Islanders is still a mystry, and refutes each of the authors' reasons.

Easter Island is a remote and isolated island with limited resources and at the time they didn't have trading. Easter Islanders were once this great society, but when the civil war began and society started using their resources, thus causing deforestation, not knowing that it would effect/ consequence it would have on the island. In addition, the Islanders were using it to build their statues which meant they were using all their wood and as shown on the graph, they reached overpopulation and They didn't have enough resources to go around since they can't fish or farm bc trees are gone. They didn't think about their actions and now they have to turn on to cannibalism to live. Not to mention when they started interacting with the modern world,

exploitation started and led to the environmental collapsed of Easter Island. The actions of the

In the end the moais of Easter Island were moved by the early settlers of the small island. The island is slowly coming back to life as people start to travel there more and more to see the incredible

Geologically, Easter Island is one of the youngest inhabited territories on the earth. Its inhabitants, the Rapu Nui, have endured epidemics or disease, famines, slave raids, civil war, cannibalism, and have seen their population crash on more than one occasion. Easter Island is famous for its statues, the Moai. Easter Island is a Chilean territory located in the south eastern Pacific Ocean. It has a population of six thousand and has an area of 163.6 km2 .Easter Island is famous for its 200 stone statues. The Moai as they’re known were made by the local people from basalt stone picks and hard volcano ash. They were made to show remembrance to their gods and ancestors. I will be exploring what caused the downfall of Easter island.