6.24.2008
Loved to Death: MOAI of Easter Island Threatened
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A spasm of eco-tourism is threatening the sustainability of the MOAI statues that occupy the heights on Easter Island.
When sea captains first visited the island - they were shocked by the giant visages and also by the lack of arboral flora - just grass and low bushes.
Celebrity geographer Jared Diamond profiled the island in his book Collapse, as a case study of how cultures can devolve and eventually consume all of the resources around them without realizing it, leading to depopulation in a pointed lesson for modern civilization.
Labels: buzz, collapse, diamond, guns, moai
