Jean Herve Daude is a Sociologist. Sensitive to the artistic manifestations of old civilizations, the author was always fascinated by the art many mysteries of Easter Island.

Frequently invited to give conferences on the topic of Easter Island, it is with passion that he transmits his knowledge of this captivating place.

Following a stay on the Island, he develops an interested in the mystery of the disappearance of its forest cover. Because the various assumptions published until now fail to convince him, he decides to carry out his own investigation, which will lead him to surprising results.

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Combining the results of new scientific discoveries and old facts compiled and reported by the first Westerners in Polynesia and on Easter Island, the author comes up with a new theory. He is firmly convinced that ancient Pascuenses experienced dramatic events following important climatic disruptions that occurred in the Pacific. 

Author’s words:

According to the author’s research, Easter Island would have been devastated by a climatic disruption of an exceptional scale which would have occurred in the southern Pacific: that is to say a mega El Niño. This phenomenon, occurring extremely rarely, would have confronted the men living on that small isolated island with a dire situation to survive. This disruption would have caused the disappearance of a great part of the Island’s resources and the destruction of forest cover. Prisoners of their island, the Pascuenses, in their tragic fights for survival, probably contributed in spite of themselves, to this regrettable deforestation.

Contrary to a thesis often evoked, Easter Island therefore does not seem to be the typical example not to repeat, of the carelessness of men who misuse nature inconsiderately and massively waste limited natural resources. When this climatic disruption of very strong intensity raged, it brought about an extraordinary situation for men struggling with numerous problems with their environment. Because of its extreme insulation, Easter Island was an exception. The Pascuenses, captive of their island, had to undergo the extreme conditions which were imposed to them by the passage of a mega El Niño.

The history of Easter Island however warns us against the disasters that are likely to threaten men in a near future. Indeed, with global warming and the climatic disruptions that will follow, the hardship that the inhabitants of Easter Island endured are likely to replicate at several locations around the world. It is indeed probable that the people with low resources will have to encroach largely on those to ensure their immediate survival to the detriment of their future needs, as it occurred on that island.

Summary

Since its discovery, Easter Island is synonymous to mysteries. Its huge statues erected against the horizon, were, for a long time, considered one of the greatest enigmas of this Island lost in the middle of the great Pacific Ocean.

Very much like their raison d'être, the realization and the installation of these statues constituted until very recently a mystery that seemed insoluble. Indeed, the first Western explorers discovered upon their arrival an island almost completely stripped of all forest cover. How had the Pascuans succeeded in working, transporting and aligning on the littoral the monumental statues? Indeed, the wood that could have been used for the manufacture of the ropes, levers as well as the parts of construction essential to the transport and the erection of the large statues does not seem to have been available.

A recent research establishing the presence of pollens fossilized in the ground of the Island however, now, clearly showed that it had been densely wooded since very old times until shortly before the arrival of the first explorers. This mystery now solved, the researchers were then confronted with a new equally intriguing enigma. What was the cause of the almost complete deforestation of the Island? Various assumptions trying to explain it were suggested. These assumptions do not however fully convince the author who, consequently, sets off on his own tracks.

Combining the results of new scientific discoveries with old facts the first Westerners in Polynesia and in Easter Island compiled and brought back, the author comes up with a new theory. He is entirely convinced that the old Pascuans experienced dramatic events following climatic disruptions of great scale that raged in the Pacific. Those disruptions, catastrophic in intensity and duration, caused the rarefaction of a great part of the Island’s resources and led to the disappearance of its forest cover. Prisoners of their island, the Pascuans, in their tragic fight for survival, probably contributed, against their own will, to that regrettable deforestation. Adapting as well as they could their way of life to the new conditions that were imposed to them, the Pascuans finally took again control of this environment that had then become much more hospital; to such an extent that some hundred to two hundred years later, it is proud and vigorous Pascuans that the first Western explorers discover.