De forestation

Unluckily, the native Rapa Nui was living in one of the most fragile ecosystems imaginable: a windy, cool climate, very dry by tropical standards. Deforestation set in almost from the outset, caused by a combination of factors: animals eating the seeds of trees; fires; El Niño-induced droughts; salt spray; and human consumption of wood.Mr. Rapu, who was also governor of the island for six years, says that the deforestation was undoubtedly a mixture of human And natural forces. By the time Dutch Admiral Jacob Roggeveen spotted the island on Easter Sunday in 1722 (there's one secret revealed for you), he found no trees taller than 10 feet.

The major obvious fallout from Easter's deforestation was diminution of the food supply. The archaeological record shows that the islanders' diet changed from big porpoises -- which had to be caught far from shore using canoes they no longer had -- to small mollusks gathered from tidal basins; Birds were hunted to extinction; and cannibalism became rife. Jared Diamond, who uses Easter as a case study in his book "Collapse," reports that "Your mother's flesh sticks in my teeth" became a common insult.

For the Easter Islanders, there was no escape. "They were trapped," says Mr. Rapu. In or around 1680, we know, civil war broke out. People began tearing down the statues, possibly in deliberate effrontery to leaders they believed had failed them. (A 33-foot tall statue named Paro, dating from about 1620, was one of the last erected and one of the last felled.) The year 1838 offers the last European mention of a standing statue, and in 1868 every moai on Easter Island was either toppled in the dirt or resting stillborn in the quarry.

Unluckily, the native Rapa Nui were living in one of the most fragile ecosystems imaginable: a windcool climate, very dry by tropical standards. Deforestation set in almost from the outset, caused by a combination of factors: animals eating the seeds of trees; fires; El Niño-induced droughts; salt spray; and human consumption of wood.Mr. Rapu, who was also governor of the island for six years, says that the deforestation was undoubtedly a mixture of human and natural forces.