Can We Save the Moai?

The beautiful moai statues of Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island) are in danger from rising sea levels and erosion -- but what can be done to save them? Learn what researchers are saying in this episode of BrainStuff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Lauren vogelbon here. For more than eight hundred years, a
series of mesmerizing statues have towered over Rapa Nui, a
remote island just fifteen miles that's twenty four kilometers wide
in the southeast Pacific Ocean. These forty foot or twelve
meter tall statues, known as the moai, have survived nearly

(00:24):
a millennium, but the effects of climate change now threatened
to topple the island's mysterious ancient history. The nearly one
thousand moai, erected between the tenth and sixteenth centuries on
Rapa Nui, also named Easter Island by an eighteenth century
Dutch explorer, are being battered by rising sea levels, high
energy waves, and increased erosion. Ancient human remains are buried

(00:46):
beneath many of the works, which appear as giant faces
gazing over land and sea. We spoke with Adam Marken,
Deputy director of Climate and Energy at the Union of
Concerned Scientists. He said some of the moai have been
knocked over in the past, including by tsunamis, and they
have been restored, so not every site is in pristine condition.
The difference now is that the danger is even greater

(01:08):
the rate of change is faster than ever. The volcanic
island of Rapa Nui, now part of Chile, is the
most isolated inhabited land mass in the world, located some
two thousand, two hundred miles that's three thousand, five hundred
kilometers from Chile's mainland and some two thousand, five hundred
miles or four thousand kilometers east of Tahiti. Part of
the vulnerability of Rapa Nui lies in the fact that

(01:31):
it is an island, and many of the moai and
the ahu or platforms on which they stand are perched
around its edges. As Markham points out, all of the
world's islands have been made vulnerable to erosion with rising
ocean levels. Some climate models predict that increased melting of
the world's ice sheets could cause oceans to rise by
five to six feet that's one point five to one

(01:51):
point eight meters by the year twenty one hundred. Higher
sea levels means shores face flooding and inundation by crashing waves.
On Rapa Nui, signs of damage from the incoming waves
is already apparent. On the island southern coast. Blocks of
a ten foot that's three meter high stone wall at
historical site or Orango Temhina toppled over last year. Beaches

(02:12):
that used to be covered in pink sand have been
eroded by waves, leaving behind rocks, and nearby burial sites
have been left exposed and vulnerable to erosion themselves. Conservationists
are testing a newly built sea wall at one part
of the island to see if it can offer protection,
but it's not certain that walls can hold off the
ocean's onslaught. Further inland, a site called Orango, which encircles

(02:33):
a volcanic crater, also stands vulnerable two storms and erosion.
Hieroglyphics at the crater site tell the tale of an
annual relay race, and now landslides and erosion triggered by
storms threatened these stone carved images. As Markham points out,
the increasing frequency of intense storms is another hallmark of
climate change. He said, as you get more and more
of these events, damage builds upon past damage. Moving the

(02:57):
hieroglyphics and some of the most vulnerable noi into protected
enclosures might help ensure their survival, but Relocating the statues
could not only harm the works, it would disregard the
role at many of the sites as burial markers for
remains of the islanders ancestors. The recognition of Rapa Nui
National Park as a UNESCO World Heritage Site acknowledges the
importance of the statutes preservation where they now stand. Markham said,

(03:21):
it's the same problem that anyone would have when thinking
about moving generations of history buried within a cemetery. A
lot of very hard choices will have to be made,
but I would doubt that much moving of artifacts will
take place on Easter Island. This isn't the first time
the island has faced ecological destruction. Some have pointed to
Easter Island's history as a cautionary environmental tale. Pollen grains

(03:43):
found the island settlements suggested it was covered in a
palm forest when it was first settled around twelve hundred CE.
By the time a Dutch settler came upon the island's
shores and the seventeen hundreds, he described the land as
being of singular poverty and barrenness. What had happened to
the islands trees? One ecoside theory popularized by US biologist
Jared Diamond in his two thousand five book Collapse, How

(04:06):
Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, suggests that the islands
human population may have overexploited the land by cutting down
most of its forests. The depletion of forests would have
left soil vulnerable to erosion, making it difficult to plant crops.
That account, however, is still up for debate. Subsequent research
has suggested that other factors, including the introduction of the

(04:26):
Polynesian rat and shifts and climate, could have contributed to
the islands deforestation. Markham said there's a lot of ongoing
argument about the island's history and what were the driving
factors of its deforestation, but in general, there are hundreds
of other places around the world where we can demonstrate
that overusing resources and not caring for the landscape can
lead to huge problems. Today, the island is mostly covered

(04:49):
in meadow and is home to a year round population
of about five thousand, seven hundred people. The island's economy
is totally dependent on tourism, and last year it was
visited by some one hundred thousand people who spent more
than seventy million dollars at local businesses. Economics are one
part of what's at stake should the islands artifacts be
destroyed by climate change. Perhaps even more profound is the

(05:11):
vulnerability of a historic legacy that's vital not only to
the people of Easter Island, but also to the world.
Markham said Easter Island matters to local people who live there,
but is also a place of global heritage. The island
carries an ability to connect with people's sense that it's
important for all of humankind. Today's episode was written by

(05:34):
Amanda Onion and produced by Tyler Clang, with kind engineering
assistance by Ramsay Yacht. For more on this and lots
of other environmental topics, visit our home planet, how stuff
Works dot com.