The Story of Easter Island

The human experience on Easter Island provides a stunning example of both an ecological and an evolutionary
crash. Only 150 square miles in area, it is located in one of the most remote places on Earth -- in the Pacific Ocean,
roughly 2,000 miles off the coast of South America. The first Europeans to visit the island were the crew of a
Dutch ship that arrived on Easter Sunday in 1722 -- hence the name Easter Island. They found a primitive society
of approximately 3,000 people, living in wretched reed huts and caves, engaged in almost perpetual warfare, and
resorting to cannibalism in a desperate attempt to supplement the meager food supplies available on the treeless
island. What was most amazing to the Dutch, the island was covered with more than 600 massive stone statues,
each averaging more than 20 feet in height, which indicated that an advanced society had once flourished on
Easter Island. To the Europeans, the primitive, barbaric, and poverty-stricken people of the island did not seem
capable of the complex tasks of carving, transporting, and erecting so many statues. The story of Easter Island's
decline is a chilling warning regarding the consequences of irreversibly damaging the environment.

Archeological evidence reveals that when Easter Island was first settled by a few dozen Polynesian colonists in
approximately 500 A.D., it had a mild climate and volcanic soil, was covered by forests, and was filled with
animal and plant life (although there were relatively few species, given the remoteness of the island). Among the
foods that the settlers brought with them, yams and chickens were particularly suited to the climate and soil. As the
islanders prospered, their numbers grew to an estimated 7,000, when the population peaked in 1550.

Because food production was so easy, the islanders had abundant free time to devote to elaborate rituals and statue
building. Over a thousand years, they developed one of the most advanced and complex societies in the world,
despite their limited resources and technologies. From early on, however, they used the resources of the island
beyond its regenerative capacity. Archeological evidence shows that the destruction of the island's forests was well
underway by the year 800 -- only 300 years after settlers first arrived. By the 1500s, the forests and palm trees had
disappeared as people cleared land for agriculture, and used the surviving trees to build oceangoing canoes, burn
as firewood, build homes, and transport statues. At the end, the remaining forests disappeared quickly, as the
islanders apparently used logs to transport statues in a competitive rivalry between the clans to see who could build
the most. The loss of the tree cover increased soil erosion and reduced soil quality -- and both factors reduced crop
yields.

The ecological destruction was not confined to the forests. Jared Diamond, professor of medicine at UCLA,
describes how the animal life was also eradicated:

The destruction of the island's animals was as extreme as that of the forests: without exception, every
species of native land bird became extinct. Even shellfish were over exploited, until people had to settle
for small sea snails. . . . Porpoise bones disappeared abruptly from the garbage heaps around 1500; no
one could harpoon porpoises anymore, since the trees used for constructing the big seagoing canoes no
longer existed. . . .

By the mid 1500s, the biosphere was so devastated that it was beyond short-term recovery. With the forests gone,
ocean fishing was impossible without trees to build boats. With animals hunted to extinction, the people turned on
one another. Centralized authority broke down, and the island descended into chaos, with rival clans living in
caves and competing with one another for survival. Eventually, according to Diamond, the islanders "turned to the
largest remaining meat source available: humans, whose bones became common in late Easter Island garbage
heaps. Oral traditions of the islanders are rife with cannibalism." By 1700, the population had crashed to between
one-quarter and one-tenth of its former level. Here is how author Clive Ponting summarizes the rise and fall of this
civilization:

Against great odds the islanders painstakingly constructed, over many centuries, one of the most
advanced societies of its type in the world. For a thousand years they sustained a way of life in
accordance with an elaborate set of social and religious customs that enabled them not only to survive
but to flourish. . . . But in the end the increasing numbers and cultural ambitions of the islanders proved
too great for the limited resources available to them. When the environment was ruined by the pressure,
the society very quickly collapsed with it leading to a state of near barbarism.

Professor Diamond concludes that the parallels between Easter Island and the Earth are strong. "Easter Island is
Earth writ small. Today, again, a rising population confronts shrinking resources. . . . we can no more escape into
space than the Easter Islanders could flee into the ocean." As Easter Island reveals, we humans have already
demonstrated our ability, on a small scale, to descend from greatness into collective madness and to devastate an
entire biosphere and culture irreparably.
 The Story of Gaviotas

A striking example of an evolutionary bounce is the village of Gaviotas, located on the grassy plains of eastern
Colombia in South America. Established in the midst of a vast, desolate plain, where nothing but a few nutrient-
poor grasses grow, it is surely one of our planet's least desirable areas to live. Paolo Lugari, who founded the
village in 1971, explained why the villagers chose this site: "They always put social experiments in the easiest,
most fertile places. We wanted the hardest place. We figured if we could do it here [in the most resource-starved
region in the country], we could do it anywhere." When people told him that the area was "just a big, wet desert,"
he would reply, "The only deserts are deserts of the imagination." In the space of a single generation -- roughly 30
years -- Gaviotans have created a sustainable economy, nurturing community, and flourishing ecosystem.

In the early 1970s, Lugari brought scientists, engineers, doctors, university students, and others to this remote and
inhospitable site to explore how it could be transformed into a thriving community. They produced a dazzling
array of low-cost but highly efficient technologies. For example, to pump water, they created a lightweight
windmill whose blades are contoured, like the wings of an airplane, so they can trap the soft breezes of the
equator. They attached highly efficient water pumps to seesaws so that when children were playing, they were
simultaneously pumping water for the community. Solar water heaters were invented that could catch the diffuse
energy of the sun even on the many cloudy days. Underground ducts were placed in hillsides to provide natural
air-conditioning for their hospital. Photovoltaic cells on rooftops provide electricity. Some food is grown in
hydroponic gardens.

The transformation of the local ecosystem has been as remarkable as the development of innovative technologies.
Since the early 1980s, the Gaviotans have planted roughly two million Caribbean pine trees, the only tree that
would grow in the nearly toxic soil. This created more than 20,000 acres of forest. From the trees, the villagers
harvest and sell pine resin, which is used in the manufacture of paint, turpentine, and paper. This provides a source
of income for the community. The pine forest has brought fresh nutrients to the soil, cooled the ground, slowed the
wind, and raised the humidity. In turn, these changes have allowed dormant seeds of native trees to sprout and
grow. The sheltering pine trees are enabling a diverse, indigenous forest to regenerate itself with surprising speed.
As a result, the local populations of deer, anteater, and other animals are growing. The Gaviotans have decided to
allow the indigenous forest to overtake and choke out the pine forest over the next century, enabling the area to
return to its original state as an extension of the Amazon.

The Gaviotans have been equally inventive socially. Everyone earns the same salary, which is above minimum
wage. Many of the basics of life are free, including housing, health care, food, and schooling for the children. With
no poverty, there has been no need for police or a jail. Government is by consensus and unwritten rules of common
sense. Dogs, pesticides, and guns are not allowed. Alcohol use is confined to homes. Loafers are not tolerated. The
harvest from this community of social invention is a village where people exude happiness. The people of
Gaviotas have the confidence of a sustainable future, a strong community, meaningful work, and a peaceful life.

As the village grows, its creator envisions new satellite villages. "I see enclaves of maybe twenty families, little
satellites surrounding Gaviotas, no more than twenty minutes away by bicycle." He envisions "little island
communities where people live in productive harmony with nature and technology. And with each other."

Alan Weisman, in his book Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, beautifully summarizes the net result of the
Gaviotans' efforts:

Surrounded by a land seen either as empty or plagued with misery, they had forged a way and a peace
they believed could prosper long after the last drop of the earth's petroleum was burned away. They were
so small, but their hope was great enough to brighten the planet turning beneath them no matter how
much their fellow humans seemed bent on wrecking it. Against all skeptics and odds, Gaviotas had
lighted a path through a magnificent but darkened land, whose sorrows mirrored a beautiful, embattled
world.

With the rapid growth of the Internet, information about how to create communities such as Gaviotas will soon be
accessible to millions of emerging eco-villages around the world. People will be able to scan the entire planet for
inventions, farming techniques, and energy production technologies that make sustainable living possible. The
Earth will be alive with inventions that are exquisitely suited to the local ecosystem, climate, and culture. Gaviotas
demonstrates that, even in the harshest conditions, humans do have the ingenuity and cooperative capacity to
create a sustainable and meaningful future.