Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, is a 24-kilometer-long triangle of land that lies 3,600 kilometers west of Chile, making it one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth.
The island is famous for its 900 monumental stone statues, between 2 and 20 meters high. These works, one of the most recognized and celebrated cultural landmarks in the world, are increasingly threatened by climate change, as is the way of life of the people Rapa Nui.
Its history has long fascinated researchers, both locally and internationally. The prosperous statue-carving culture, which at the beginning of the 17th century had more than 15,000 inhabitants, was reduced in a century to a fifth. A long-standing opinion attributed it to the overexploitation of resources, which led to ecological and social collapse.
Recent research suggests that European contact could have triggered Rapa Nui’s decline in the decades after a Dutch ship landed in 1722. It is now Chile’s special territory.
What is not up for debate are the challenges facing the island. The sea level is rising, rainfall is decreasing and the 7,750 inhabitants of the island, affected by the effects of the COVID-19are increasingly concerned that climate change is destroying their legacy and the economy they built to celebrate and protect it.
The island was supposed to come out of pandemic lockdown in February, but that goal has been delayed indefinitely.
The statues, called moai, are on platforms called ahu, where human remains were placed.. The monuments are concentrated on the island’s shorelines, making them vulnerable to rising sea levels, storm flooding and even tsunamis, which some residents fear more than erosion and flooding.
The waves are ripping stones from the ahu, endangering the security of a World Heritage Site that an agency of the UN rated in 1995 as “artistic and architectural tradition of great power and imagination”.
Jane Downes, archaeologist at the University of the Highlands and Islands of Scotlandwho has worked on the Rapa Nui sites since 2009, has seen firsthand how the wind and sea corrode the moai and ahu.
“Once it starts, it can increase exponentiallyDownes says.
Extreme weather risks may not be new, but they are on the rise. A 1960 tsunami toppled the moai of the prominent Ahu Tongariki, which was restored in the 1990s. Ahu Tahai’s partial collapse in May 2021 heralds further trouble, says Hetereki Huke, an architect leading development of an action plan. Climate in Rapa Nui.
“This is starting to happen”Huke points out. “It will be more common than before, and perhaps it will no longer be a slow deteriorating process, but it may be that with a tremendous event, we will have an irremediable loss of assets”.
Having hardly contributed to climate change, the Rapa Nui are just one of many indigenous peoples around the world fighting against its threats. Local and international scientists and the Government of Chile have been working since 2016 to launch an action plan against climate change. The first stage requires 200 million Chilean pesos (US$246,000), but financing was paralyzed during the pandemic.
A breakwater wall financed years ago with a Japanese donation protects a moai site, the Ahu de Runga Va’e, from the sea.
sea level in the ocean peacefulwhich surrounds the Easter Islandis rising about the global average, and is estimated to rise 0.5 meters or more by 2100. Storms are a growing concern, even though total rainfall could decline by 15% in coming decades.
Annual rainfall has decreased from 1,311 ml in 1991 to 992 ml in 2020, according to data from the Rapa Nui weather station. In a climate study by the University of Chile carried out in 2019, about 75% of the simulations analyzed predicted an average decrease in annual rainfall of more than 10% by the end of the century.
The lack of rain has already caused the Rano Raraku volcanic lagoon to dry up in recent years. The Rapa Nui people use it both for water supply and to commemorate their cultural legacy.
“The Rapa Nui people have systems for managing their resources that are very old and traditional”Huke explains.
The legacy of the island is the engine of its main economic activity. Tens of thousands of tourists brought in some $100 million a year to the island before the pandemic, according to a recent report by the Rapa Nui Chamber of Commerce.
This sector employed 30% of the population in 2019, but more than 90% of the inhabitants benefited in some way from tourism, whether through accommodation, shops, fishing or other services, making it the largest source of income for the island.
The pandemic hit them hard, with more than half of households having a family member lose their job.
“The whole island lives from the tourism sector”Huke says. “So the economic dimension of climate change is important”.
Source: Gestion
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