EVENT
The Easter Island Collapse
The Rapa Nui civilization that felled every tree on its island — cutting down the last one for a canoe or a moai roller or winter fuel — and in doing so destroyed the resource base that made its civilization possible.
Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is a remote volcanic island in the southeastern Pacific whose population carved and transported nearly nine hundred monumental stone statues (moai) between approximately 1100 and 1650 CE before undergoing a catastrophic population collapse. The proximate mechanism was complete deforestation: the Rapa Nui cut down every tree on the island, eliminating the resource base that sustained their canoes, their fishing economy, their transportation system, their housing, and eventually their soil stability. The case is Diamond's most dramatic illustration of prisoner's dilemma dynamics driving resource depletion to complete exhaustion.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Easter Island's original forest was remarkable. The primary species, the Easter Island palm (Paschalococos disperta), was related to the Chilean wine palm and could reach heights of over eighty feet with trunks wide enough to hollow into seagoing canoes. The forest covered essentially the entire island and supported