Abstract

Tiffany Davis

Dr. Sonia Begert

English 102

1^st December, 2014

Abstract

            Easter Island is an extremely isolated island, and it is often a topic of study because of this isolation. When Easter Island was colonized they had healthy soil for agriculture, a tree canopy covered the island, birds were plentiful, and they were content to build their stone statues. What happened? They depleted their primary renewable resource (trees) faster than they could regenerate, resulting in complete deforestation of the Island and subsequently a severe collapse of the islands population. Often Easter Island is used as a small scale example of environmental degradation and collapse that we can compare to our world today. Some have argued that it was deforested by rats, or that it did not collapse until the Europeans arrived and brought diseases. I, however, will show that the islanders deforested their island with little involvement from the rats, and that the Europeans were not the cause of Easter Islands’ population collapse. By showing this, I emphasize the importance of learning from Easter Island, for the islanders made the mistake of overusing their renewable resources while already in a fragile environment. We are seeing a lot of the same problems with our own environment in our society today, and we need to look to the past to ensure we do not repeat the same mistakes.