Esther Island and The Rainforest, What It Means for Tomorrow

Greetings and welcome to the Annual Convention of Citizens for a Greener Planet.  It’s wonderful to see how much work we have accomplished to this point, as it gives us the strength to move on and tackle more and more issues that will help insure our planet is here for our children and the generations to come.  This year we have made sustainable development the focus of our annual convention.  Sustainable development is the key to making sure the balance between what we have today will still be available for our needs tomorrow as well as the years to come.

We need to work to find sustainable ways to produce the words needs.   Having ways to make things last forever or be reborn into other useful products is just one small part of the puzzle. Even our recycling needs to be looked again and again. We also need to put into effect ways to give back to the earth what we have taken from it.  Farmers have learned this lesson regarding crop fields that are used to often without a rest or adding to the earth the needed elements that the crops deplete. Sustainability is a concept that we need to put into place now before it’s too late.  If we continue this path of gluttony, we will surely bring the down fall of many civilizations much like what has happen to the people of Easter Island.

Easter Island is an island located in South Pacific that was located by Three Dutch ships On Easter Sunday in 1722.(Wright, 2008).  The significance of this discovery would not hit till years later when scientist pieced together the history of the ill fated island. This island went from a population numbering from 10-20 thousand was down to a few thousand all due to social and environmental issues (Wright, 2008).  Easter Island showed signs of being an advance civilization at one time, was reduced to a few thousand people that had resorted to cannibalism to survive during these times.  How could that happen?  Why did someone not see what was happening?  All these questions are still unanswered today.

Easter Island people fought each other at every step. When the ruling class was destroyed the working class then turned on each other. These great wars destroyed not only the people but the very earth they were fighting for.  They cut down all the trees which left the ground defenseless against the elements of the sea, wind, and sun. Then these primitive people received visitors from the outside world that left their mark on this already vulnerable civilization.  They infected them with venereal diseases and other infectious diseases such as small pox and if that was not enough the slave traders found them as well. Even today Ester Island has to depend on outside help for food and supplies.  While they now have become a tourist’s destination it still has not helped them recover from the ecological problems of what they had done to the island it’s self or the loss of much of Easter Island civilization.