Abstract
AbstractThe effectiveness of governance depends on the knowledge upon which decisions are based. Knowledge veracity is particularly significant when future conditions are uncertain. In the context of global climate change, communities around the world, including the residents of Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile), face tremendous uncertainty in resource availability. In the context of these looming challenges, prehistoric Rapa Nui is often treated as a warning about human-induced ecological catastrophe. With contemporary populations of the island wrestling about issues of governance, it is vital that researchers carefully validate their knowledge about the island’s past. Despite the claims of traditional narratives, new empirical research on Rapa Nui indicates that the traditional “collapse” narrative has no basis. Instead, the island is now known to have been sustainable from its prehistory until European contact. These findings point to the potential of alternative action models and new governance structures.
Highlights
After more than 130 years of Chilean rule—located more than 3600 km away across the sea—islanders have been working to establish a governance system to equitably manage the island’s cultural and natural resources while addressing the overlapping sets of authority that stem from family groups, a series of 10 clans, resident-elected town government officials, a provincial governor appointed by the Chilean President, and numerous Chilean agencies at the provincial and national levels
This perspective is derived from narratives of the earliest Europeans who visited the island in the eighteeth century (Hunt & Lipo, 2011), the idea that Rapa Nui’s past represents a case of failure of governance remains strong in popular culture. Part of this popularity comes from the work of Jared Diamond via his various essays (e.g., Diamond, 1995) and his book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005). The popularity of this notion has led many scholars to offer Rapa Nui as an exemplar case for potential future human population growth coupled with dwindling natural resources (e.g., Erickson & Gowdy, 2000; Foot, 2004; Nagarajan, 2006)
We review how new research has drastically reshaped our understanding of Rapa Nui prehistory
Summary
Lessons from Rapa Nui (Easter Island, Chile) for Governance in Conditions of Environmental Uncertainty. With increasing numbers of flights and cruise ship visits, the annual number of visitors to the island has surged to more than 60,000 (CODEIPA, 2015), with expectations of significant increases Such increased numbers have resulted in greater use of the natural landscape, with widespread impacts to the archaeological record. In 2008, for example, a Finnish tourist broke a portion of an ear from one of the island’s iconic statues, a moai, creating an international incident (Barfelz, 2011) These kinds of events have led to greater efforts to restrict access to archaeological features and keep tourists from damaging the cultural resources they come to see. The population growth has resulted in many new houses in the town of Hanga Roa and its surrounding area, concerns over the growing number of cars and traffic, as well as an expansion of
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