Article March 14, 2005 ISSUE

A BETTER ENVIRONMENT—IT'S YOUR CHOICE

By Channing Walker

They didn't see it coming! The long-ago Polynesian natives of Easter Island—best known for these majestic stone statues—didn't expect the almost complete collapse, then disappearance, of their society. Nor, presumably, did they foresee the far-reaching impact of their choices, choices that triggered the collapse. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond details the story in a new book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. He chronicles cases across history and around the globe of societies self-destructing, often through environmental degradation and deforestation.

That, apparently, was the case on Easter Island, which had been home to the tallest species of palm tree in the world. Today no tree taller than ten feet grows there. Once those tall palms were chopped down, canoe builders were soon out of work (no materials). Then fishermen (no canoes). And farmers (no suitable fields because of soil erosion on a now-denuded land). And so on went the downward spiral.