Easter Island has been described by Jared Diamond as the "clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources".
Prof Diamond has told and retold the story and drawn a parallel between the ecological disaster he says befell Easter Island and our likely fate because we are cutting down too many trees and consuming too much energy.
In the September-October issue of American Scientist Online Terry Hunt details findings from his work on Easter Island.
It is an interesting read in which Hunt concludes that rats introduced by the Polynesians negatively impacted on recruitment in Jubaea palms resulting in forest decline. In contrast, Jared Diamond says the Polynesians simply cut down all the trees.
Furthermore Hunt suggests that the downfall of the original Polynesian civilization resulted not from internal strife associated with ecological disaster following destruction of the forest, but rather from contact with Europeans.
I read a lot of James Michener books when I was a bit younger. Civilizations destroyed by new arrivals is a consistent theme in Michener's stories.
Diamond did the usual sleaze by adding a minor reference to a more likely scenario to allow him to claim that his appocalyptic main theme was "balanced". What a shonk.
Well folks,
Seems like we have a consensus. Everything and everyone should be sent back to where they came from and then everything will be the way it should be.
Is that right?
Hey Russell,
I don't get on this blog all that often. For what it's worth I think you make more sense than most.
Natural systems are far more complex than the vast majority can comprehend, and the smarter we get, the more we are realising that we don't know all that much at all.
Certainly not about the important interactions between the life systems that sustain us anyhow.
The excuse chasers and proponents for chemical reliant (less is not good enough) of industrialised agriculture will beg to differ of course.
Jared Dimond and Allan Savory are closer to the mark I think, which also allows us a clear and succesful way forward.
We just need the will.
This will happen by us either gaining more understanding first or alternately having to respond to disaster later on.
When I was not wading around in streams collecting fish and other things in Irian Jaya I too noticed the impact of transmigration.
However, why is biodiversity important?
I can only put my own perspective on that, others will have to say why its important to them personally - or not important.
When I look at natural systems I am always impressed at how many different types of organisms and species can co-exist in these systems. By contrast our own constructed and modified systems are always much poorer - in terms of the different species supported and serves to remind us how much we have yet to learn.
I also enjoy the beauty of natural systems and spend as much time as possible in them -although I don't want to go butt naked back into the woods on a permanent basis.
There are also the anthropocentric arguments which suggest that all species should be thoroughly checked to determine their utility to humans before being discarded or ignored.
Personally I tend to think of us as stewards of life on Earth, and if we are as technologically advanced as we believe then it ought to be possible to revere all life on the planet and make a place for it - a sort of modern Noahs Ark approach.
The philosophical basis of this is a belief that ultimately everything on this planet are our closest living relatives, and we ought to feel at least some responsibility at this time of our supremacy.
Taust - sometimes the results are benign, or natural systems make way to feed the world, sometimes the zebra trample the penguins, sometimes an AIDS superbug develops and we all die. Meddle with millions of years of coevolution in just 10,000 years and we call it the 21st century. The ability to think about the nature of things sets us apart but not always in control.