Deforestation: Easter Island vs. The Amazon Rain Forest

Let us begin by first discussing Easter Island’s civilizations before their collapse.  Settlers who were most likely Polynesian sailors arrived at the island around 400 A.D., along with the sailors; stowaway rats also joined them in their travels.  Easter Island was covered with beautiful vegetation as well as Palm trees which were only found on the island and which in turn were named Easter Island Palms.  The inhabitants found that the wood from the Easter Island palms, where a perfect medium for building houses, constructing canoes, weaving rope as well as many other uses.  Due to the lack of land animals, the inhabitants depended on the sea for their food.  The growing number of inhabitants constant need to repair and build, increased their need for more palms, thus around 1400 A.D. the tree that these people depended on became extinct. The stowaway rat’s populations also increased, due to lack of predators, and are responsible for eating the seeds.  Completely running out of the wood their livelihood depended on, they were no longer able to neither make nor repair boats, nets, and other much-needed instruments for fishing.  The people then turned to migrated fowl as well as the islands native 22-land bird species. Now with the number of birds decreasing, which is also a natural mode to spread seeds and pollinate, the island soon became barren.  By the time Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggevee arrived on Easter Sunday in 1722, there were only around 2000 inhabitants, as well as rats being the main land animal.  Roggevee reported that there were no trees over ten feet high, and hardly any vegetation.   (Butler, 2005)

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia