In the example of Easter Island, we can conclude that the expansion of human activities on the island was unsustainable because the relationship between environment and development was characterised by the over-exploitation of natural resources
What happened on Easter Island and why is it significant to our study of sustainability and environmental science?
The collapse of Easter Island’s environment led to a collapse of its society. When early Polynesians arrived on Easter Island, they found a remote island with limited resources in the form of large palm tree forests.
What was not sustainable on Easter Island?
Increased exposure caused soil erosion and the leaching out of essential nutrients. As a result crop yields declined. The only source of food on the island unaffected by these problems was the chickens. The society went into decline and regressed to ever more primitive conditions.
What was the downfall of Easter Island?
Around 1200 A.D., their growing numbers and an obsession with building moai led to increased pressure on the environment. By the end of the 17th century, the Rapanui had deforested the island, triggering war, famine and cultural collapse.What are three things that were ultimately not sustainable on Easter Island?
With no trees to anchor the soil, fertile land eroded away resulting in poor crop yields, while a lack of wood meant islanders couldn’t build canoes to access fish or move statues. This led to internecine warfare and, ultimately, cannibalism.
Why did the islanders not realize what they were doing to their island?
Why did the islanders not realize what they were doing to their island? They didn’t know what they were doing. What can save us from the same fate as the Easter Islanders? We would learn the same fate from the past.
What might have caused the destruction of the civilization of Easter Island?
Thousands of small, sharp, spearlike objects scattered throughout Easter Island have long been presumed to be evidence of massive warfare that led to the demise of its ancient civilization. … Popular belief held that massive internal warfare led to the population’s catastrophic collapse.
What happened on Easter Island a new even scarier scenario?
What Happened On Easter Island — A New (Even Scarier) Scenario : Krulwich Wonders… Whatever happened on Easter Island, it wasn’t good. Polynesians landed there, farmed, thrived, built their famous statues, and then things went very bad, very fast. Sixteen million trees vanished.Was there cannibalism on Easter Island?
With no trees to anchor the soil, fertile land eroded away resulting in poor crop yields, while a lack of wood meant islanders couldn’t build canoes to access fish or move statues. This led to internecine warfare and, ultimately, cannibalism.
How does degradation affect the environment?Continued environmental degradation can completely destroy the various aspects of the environment such as biodiversity, ecosystems, natural resources, and habitats. For instance, air pollution can lead to the formation of acid rain which can in turn reduce the quality of natural water systems by making them acidic.
Article first time published onWhat do archeologist think killed the original inhabitants of Easter Island?
Island tradition claims that around 1680, after peacefully coexisting for many years, one of the island’s two main groups, known as the Short-Ears, rebelled against the Long-Ears, burning many of them to death on a pyre constructed along an ancient ditch at Poike, on the island’s far northeastern coast.
How did humans destroy Easter Island?
However new evidence based on pollen analysis supports a much simpler theory, that the Easter Island inhabitants destroyed their own society through deforestation. When Easter Island was “discovered” by Europeans in 1722, it was a barren landscape with no trees over ten feet in height.
What were the environmental issues on Easter Island?
Easter Island is one of the most extreme examples of deforestation in the world: the entire forest is gone and all tree species extinct. Evidence suggests forest harvesting started around 900 and peaked in 1400.
Did they cut down all the trees on Easter Island?
There is good evidence that the trees largely disappeared between 1200 and 1650. Assuming that wood was used to move statues, a popular proposal was formulated that the islanders, besotted with their moai, cut down all the palm trees in order to move statues.
What did Easter Islanders eat?
Easter Islanders Ate Little Seafood – Archaeology Magazine. POCATELLO, IDAHO—An analysis of teeth from 41 individuals whose remains were found on Easter Island suggests that the Rapa Nui ate a diet of plants such as yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas, and terrestrial animals, including Polynesian rats and chickens.
Why is Easter Island so important?
Easter Island is famous for its stone statues of human figures, known as moai (meaning “statue”). The island is known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui. The moai were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around 1000 C.E. until the second half of the seventeenth century.
Are there still rats on Easter Island?
Anthropologist Terry Hunt and colleagues say that introduced Polynesian rats may have caused the deforestation of the island’s 16 million palm trees which were key to sustaining Easter’s human population. … Virtually no animals besides rats inhabited the island and the natives lacked sea-worthy boats.
Why consequences of environmental degradation do not respect national or state boundaries?
Environmental degradation do not respect national or state boundaries because: … Environmental degradation impacts the nations. Global warming, acid rain, etc. are not to be controlled by one nation.
Is environmental degradation good or bad?
Over consumption of natural resources results in environmental degradation, reducing the effectiveness of essential ecosystem services, such as the mitigation of floods and landslides. This leads to increased risk from disasters, and in turn, natural hazards can further degrade the environment.
What causes the most damage to the environment?
1) High quantity of Exhaust gases: The biggest reason by far for all kinds of environmental damage is the exorbitant amount of gases, harmful to the environment, which is released by the various industries. Prime amongst these gases are C02, S02 and NH3.
What's the language spoken on Easter Island?
Rapa NuiRegionEaster IslandEthnicityRapa NuiNative speakers1,000 (2016)Language familyAustronesian Malayo-Polynesian Oceanic Polynesian Eastern Polynesian Rapa Nui
Why was Easter Island so susceptible to deforestation?
Until recently it had been thought that the total and sudden deforestation of Easter Island a thousand years ago was due to an over-exploitation of natural resources by the inhabitants of the island, leading to the collapse of their civilization.
Why did the vegetation disappear at Easter Island?
It’s believed the trees were cut down by the ancestors of today’s Easter Islanders in order to transport the giant stone statues – the Moai – as well as to build canoes, houses and fires to burn the dead. When Europeans “discovered” the island during Easter in 1722, there was not a single tree to be seen.
