Concluding Thoughts

I’ll be the first to admit that when I started investigating Easter Island, I came across Jared Diamond’s Collapse and thought, wow, how could the Easter Islanders do this to their own island, ‘what were they thinking?’. But as I researched Easter more, I came across numerous other theories, and evidence, behind Easter’s collapse, and I realised that the Easter Island mystery was much more complex than I first thought. I’ve made a table with the summary, evidence and sources of each of the theories (see this previous post).

I started looking at climate variability and its effect on marine biomass, agriculture and other resources. I then looked at deforestation due to rats, which is an alternative theory behind deforestation as proposed by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo. Deforestation, soil erosion, population expansion, resource depletion and warfare and cannibalism were then investigated in turn, which formed the ecocide theory that as Polynesians arrived onto the island around A.D. 800, population began to expand, as did culture and religion. Both population, and the construction of the moai statues expanded beyond the island’s limits and caused resource depletion and deforestation, which then caused soil erosion and agricultural failure. The population began to decline, and in turn caused warfare and cannibalism as the hierarchal society structure of chiefs and priests were replaced with the ‘birdman’ cult. Lastly, the impact of the European’s arrival, whalers, other colonists, slave-raids and the introduction of foreign diseases on Easter’s population were investigated.

I have tried to be as unbiased as possible when reviewing each of the theories, and looking at how Easter is a parable for today, yet I have found this quite difficult due to the considerable scientific and public support for the ‘ecocide’ theory, and the way in which those who oppose Diamond have argued their case. For example, Benny Peiser (2005) and Mark Lynas (2011) believe that the ecocide theory is just as much a myth as what actually happened on Easter Island. However, their argument seems to be based on a vendetta against Diamond, where they pick parts of his theory that they do not agree with, but don’t provide scientific evidence for doing so, and do not provide an alternative theory based on scientific evidence. I think that scholars investigating Easter Island have slightly lost their way when it comes to evidence and science, where they either seem caught up in the lessons we can learn from Easter or disagreeing with Diamond rather than providing alternative theories based on evidence. They, in my opinion, need to look at the work of Bahn and Flenley, who used archaeological and palaeological evidence from numerous lines of evidence to inform their theories that deforestation was probably the cause behind Easter’s collapse. Improved estimates of settlement dates, peak population, timings of population collapse and reasons behind the collapse are constantly emerging, and I think its this that we need to concentrate on if we are to understand the Easter Island mystery.

I personally think that deforestation did occur on Easter by looking at the pollen evidence, and this in turn triggered soil erosion, which can be seen in the soil profile on Poike Peninsula (see previous post on Soil Erosion). However, I do think that the evidence surrounding resource depletion, such as a reduction in porpoise bones, needs much more work before we can completely prove that population expansion beyond the island’s limits caused resource depletion, particularly deforestation, reduced soil erosion causing agricultural failure, a collapse in Easter’s culture, warfare and cannibalism and the corresponding population collapse. I think that deforestation and soil erosion did occur on the island, and that resource depletion did to some extent cause a population decline. However, I think that it was the European’s arrival, bringing foreign diseases, and slave-raids, which essentially caused the final population collapse. New estimates of population peaks on Easter propose number more like 3000-4000 people. The combination of slave-raids, which took 1500 people, and bringing diseases the natives were non-immune to, in my opinion, could have easily reduced the population from 3000-4000 to its estimated post-collapse numbers of 100 people.

So, what’s the point in this blog?

Despite my opinion, many scholars think that Easter collapsed due to this ecocide theory. My last few posts investigated the lessons that we can, and have learnt from Easter Island, and demonstrates the reason why so many of us argue over the reasons behind its collapse. Easter can be brought into the 21^st Century as a lesson that we can learn from, in terms of societal collapse due to population expansion, resource depletion and deforestation. Today’s society faces many environmental problems; water problems, deforestation, end of tropical rainforests, overfishing, soil erosion and salinisation, global climate change, full utilisation of the world’s fresh water supplies, exhaustion of cheap energy resources, accumulation of toxic chemicals in water, food and soil, increase in human population and increase in the per capita impact of our population. I investigated the lessons that we can learn from Easter’s collapse, particularly resource depletion, population expansion and deforestation. Essentially, Easter as a parallel to Earth boils down to politics and decision-making, but our decision-making can be different because we can use the lessons learnt from past societal collapses such as Easter Island to inform current decisions on our environmental problems.

Easter Island is tale of wonder, where one of the most socially and technologically advanced societies for its time managed to inhabit and flourish on one of the most isolated and inhabitable places on Earth. Yet, it can also be a tale of warning for today’s society, where the same reasons behind Easter’s collapse could be applied to today’s society.

And so, I reach the conclusion for this blog. Thank you all for reading my blog, I really have found it fascinating researching Easter Island and I hope I’ve been able to translate a fraction of this fascination into my blog for you to read! While my blog stops here, the mystery of Easter Island will carry on and with this in mind, I’ll leave you with one more quote:

“Of all the vanished civilisations, no other has evoked as much bafflement, incredulity and conjecture as the Pacific island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island).”

The Moai Statues' Opinion on Easter's Collapse

I found this cartoon online on the moai statues and what they think 'happened to Easter Island'. I thought that one of the little quotes on there was quite interesting/amusing and relevant to the past few posts I have made over the lessons that today's society can learn from Easter Island's society:


"Lunacy is repeating the same actions, yet expecting different results"


Is today's society lunatic for repeating the same actions that past civilisations such as Easter Island have made, expecting that we won't meet the same fate as them? Are we lunatics for thinking that we can deplete our resources or expand our population beyond its limits, and not expect to collapse in the same way Easter did?


"Can we frighten ourselves back from oblivion?"


 I'll leave that one for you to decide....

Easter Island: A Tale of Wonder

Through deforestation, resource depletion and population explosion, it is easy to see how Easter Island is a tale of warning, as investigated by the previous few posts. However, many tend to overlook the fact that Easter Island is also a tale of wonder. Against great odds (the most inhabitable and isolated place on Earth, with few resources), the islanders had painstakingly constructed over several centuries, one of the most advanced societies of its type in the world. From the time of settlement to its peak population, they sustained a way of life that not only allowed them to survive, but also to flourish. The moai statues are an incredible example of this, and demonstrated the islander’s triumph of human ingenuity and an apparent victory over a difficult environment.

Meith and Bork’s (2005) study of soil profile on the Poike Peninsula suggested that the Islander’s were practising sustainable agriculture from their time of settlement until A.D. 1300. Even after A.D. 1300 when agriculture became unsustainable due to population growth and soil erosion, there were still example of some settlements using planting pits, which were the most effective and sustainable method of farming.

The Islanders were responsible for the carving, transport and erection of 800 moai statues, suggesting a socially and technologically advanced society. Both the moai construction and the survival of the islanders depended on the resources scattered round the island. A highly complex society would have been required to organise these resources in a way that its society could flourish and create the moai statues. 

If you support the view that the European’s introduction of foreign diseases and slave-trading were the cause behind Easter’s collapse, then Easter would seem even more a tale of wonder, rather than warning. Easter’s society were not the reason behind its collapse, rather it was another society, one that was more socially and technologically advanced than Easter’s, that caused its demise. Benny Peiser (2005) quotes that:

“Yet in spite of exceptionally challenging conditions, the indigenous population chose to survive – and they did…What they could not endure, however, and what most of them did not survive, was something altogether different: the systematic destruction of their society, their people and their culture.”

So if Easter is a parable for today’s society, then maybe we should be flattered that we are being compared to such a socially and technologically advanced society for its time, one that flourished on one of the most inhabitable places and isolated places on Earth, and one that held devoted cultural and religious beliefs. I think this is perfectly summed up in this quote by Mark Lynas (2011):

“Resilience and sustainability are just as likely outcomes, even over the longer term. This, I think, is the true lesson of Easter Island.”

Earth and Easter: The Lessons We Can Learn From Rapa Nui [2]

So, we know the parallels between our society and Easter Island’s. So what? Its easy enough to state the similarities, but what we need to do now is take the lessons we’ve learnt from Easter and put them into practice for today’s society.

Diamond summarises this point with his likening of history to experiments:

‘History consists of lots of natural experiments, some of which ended badly and some of which ended well. Today we are running a big natural experiment, but it’s a worldwide natural experiment’

So how can we use Easter’s experiment to make ours work? Well it essentially boils down to politics and decision-making. We had the technology to make the damage, therefore we must have the technology to undo it…but it’s about whether or not we want to. Diamond outlines a decision-making process for solving a problem, and Easter provides us with the perfect example of an unfortunate society who, from the decision-making process, made bad decisions:

1. Whether a society anticipates a problem or not: The Easter Islanders were not able to anticipate the problems of dry, low, high-latitude islands because they came from wet, high equatorial islands.
2. Failure to perceive a problem when the problem has arrived: Population growth couple with deforestation would have been slow during early settlement, thus the islanders may not have realised the extent of their problem until it was too late. This teaches us that we must think through our actions and anticipate the consequences as fully as possible, however it seems we have ignored Easter Island in this respect in light of the majority of the environmental problems we are facing today.
3. When a group has perceived a problem, whether or not they try to solve the problem based on rational behaviour of the group. It is proposed that Easter’s chiefs were acting their own self-interest, by building bigger statues to stake their claim as the best chief, which would have caused further soil erosion and deforestation (if you believe that the moai statues were rolled on tree trunks, and this could have majorly contributed to the deforestation. Again its plain to see a parable with today’s society here, as conflicting interests surrounding climate change with China and the rest of the developing work conflicting against the EU and those who are working to curb global warming.
4. A society may fail to solve a problem because some problems are just too difficult to solve given the available technology. With the European’s bringing diseases the natives were immune to, and slave trading, the society were simply incapable of solving their problem with the medicine and weapons they had.

So, have we learnt from Easter Island?

Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon have dropped by 70% over the past 5 years, due to a change in attitude in the Government, famers and cattle owners (see a really interesting podcast by Justin Rowlatt of the BBC, who investigates this deforestation rate drop by talking to farmers, politicians and environmental organisations in associated with this scheme in Brazil - http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00mmnqv/Business_Daily_Saving_the_Brazilian_Amazon/). As deforestation continued on Easter Island, instead of seeking to improve the complex political system that allowed the settlement of 7000 people on one of the most inhabitable places on Earth, the islanders overthrew the political system. The ‘birdman’ cult was then created, and was (according to legends) fuelled by competition and warfare between tribes, rather than being a peaceful complex political system.

New sustainable businesses (funnily enough, one of the biggest new sustainable business from the Amazon in Brazil is the production of Rainforest friendly condoms, which kills two birds in one stone as it also reduces population expansion!), changing attitudes of farmers, better monitoring through satellites, and pressure and campaigns by pressure groups were all part of saving the Brazilian Rainforest. Could Easter have survived deforestation if they had similar policies and thinking to Brazil’s? I’ll let you decide that one!

The sustainable businesses from the Brazilian Amazon highlights the success of sustainable development, and this has not stopped in just Brazil. There are plenty of successful sustainable development stories and schemes around the world. Lastly there are numerous population growth policies, some successful and others not - China’s one child policy is a well-known example of a country trying to curb its population expansion.

So to conclude this post, yes, we do have many lessons to learn from Easter Island, and it all boils down to policies and decision-making. Even if you do not believe that the ‘ecocide’ theory is correct, and that deforestation, resource depletion and population expansion caused Easter’s demise, what is the harm in believing that we can learn from Easter Island? There is no doubt we are facing many environmental problems today, so if Easter is used a ‘scare tactic’ to kick out society into gear, so what if you believe in the ecocide theory? At the end of the day, if it helps us to face, and make decisions on how to improve some our environmental problems, then we should let it.  

Attenborough's Warning from Easter Island

David Attenborough presents this short 4 minute video which explains the warning that Easter's history provides today's society, and it pretty much sums up the ecocide theory and how this relates to today. It ends with a plea from Attenborough himself to listen to the lesson Easter provides and to conserve our planet for future generations. Now i don't know about you, but if there is anyone i'm going to listen to who's telling me to save the planet, its going to be David Attenborough!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/8982.flv

Earth and Easter: The Lessons We Can Learn From Rapa Nui [1]

In his chapter on Easter Island in the infamous book Collapse, Diamond finishes with this quote:

‘The parallels between Easter Island and the modern world are chillingly obvious. Thanks to globalisation, international trade, jet planes and internet, all countries on Earth today share resources and affect each other, just as did Easter’s dozen clans…those are the reasons why people see the collapse of Easter Island society as a metaphor, a worst-case scenario, for what may lie ahead of us in out future’

Today’s society are facing an overwhelming amount of environmental problems, including; water problems, deforestation, end of tropical rainforests, overfishing, soil erosion and salinisation, global climate change, full utilisation of the world’s fresh water supplies, exhaustion of cheap energy resources, accumulation of toxic chemicals in water, food and soil, increase in human population and increase in the per capita impact of our population. Many past civilisations and societies collapsed due to one or more of these problems, for example the Mayan civilisation collapse due to a combination of environmental degradation, deforestation, a series of severe droughts, economic stress and socio-political upheaval (see Meera’s blog ‘The Lost Chronicles of Mesoamericans’ for more information on the causes behind the Mayan collapse). It is plain to see numerous parallels between the causes of collapse of the Mayans and the environmental problems we are facing today.

The similarities between Easter and today’s society are clear if you support the ‘ecocide’ theory suggested by Diamond and many others, however if you disagree with this theory and think that Easter collapsed due to either rats or the European’s arrival, other colonists, whalers and slave-traders then Easter as an analogy to Earth might not quite be so clear.

So, what parallels exist between Easter and today?

Population Expansion

The global population is growing exponentially, and is projected to carry on expanding if we do nothing, as shown by the diagram below. 

Over the past hundred years population growth has expanded from 0.9 billion in 1750 to today’s 6.9 billion. From Easter’s settlement to its peak population, a population rate growth of 3% per year has been estimated (Hunt and Lipo 2007) in comparison to our current world population growth rate of 1.14%. However, we cannot compare the two in this sense due to the vastly differing scales of the entire Earth and a 64 mile² island. Population growth rates mainly range from 0.1% to 3%, so its plain to see that both Easter’s society, and ours are alike when it comes to rapid population expansion.

Deforestation

The 2005 United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) report estimated that the Earth’s total forest area decreases by around 13 million hectares a year, due to a number of factors including clearing for grazing cattle, colonization (human settlement), infrastructure improvements, commercial agriculture and logging. This is plainly comparable to Easter’s deforestation as suggested by Diamond (2005), Meith and Bork (2010) and Anderson (1994) who suggested that the islander’s deforestation their island to the point of no trees to make space for settlement and farming, as well as for resources.

Soil Erosion

Soil erosion, or more generally landscape degradation, is a major problem facing the world today. Caused by land clearance (deforestation), overgrazing, depletion of soil nutrients through poor agricultural practices, poor irrigation, pollution, quarrying and urban sprawl, landscape degradation also had detrimental impacts to Easter. My previous post investigating a study by Meith and Bork (2005) highlights that soil erosion on Easter caused the abandonment of agriculture and human settlement on the Poike peninsula, and the breakdown of the ‘stone culture’. Today, soil erosion and landscape degradation is having similar effects, with an estimated 40% of the world’s agricultural land to be already degraded (Sample 2007), causing further resource depletion.

Resource Exploitation

Resource exploitation and depletion today, is arguably, one of the most serious environmental problems facing the world today, including the depletion of freshwater supplies, the exhaustion of energy and fossil fuel resources, overfishing and food and water scarcity. Common causes of resource depletion are overpopulation, slash and burn agricultural practises, erosion, forestry, overconsumption/excessive use of resources, pollution and irrigation. The majority of these causes (except pollution) contributed to resource depletion on Easter and most certainly contribute to our current society’s resource depletion. It is, again, evident that there are parallels between Easter and Earth, as Easter depleted its marine resources, food (indicated by the extinction of land birds), forests and agricultural land due to overpopulation, slash and burn, erosion and excessive use of resources (rolling the moai statues on tree trunks?).

I have to make it clear here, that looking at the parables between Earth and Easter means that we are supporting the ‘ecocide’ theory, and although it did most certainly have an impact on Easter, we must not forget the devastation caused by slave-raids and foreign diseases caused by the European’s arrival on Easter.

So what can, and have we learnt from Easter Island? Well you’ll just have to wait until the next post to find that out!