The People of Easter Island

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Recommended: easter island and environment

When I first picked this book up looking at the comic style cartoon on the cover my initial thought was that it was just another children’s introduction to problems in the environment type book, but as I began to read it this book is turning out to be much more than that. Chapter one begins with the mystery of the statues on Easter Island where the few inhabitants lived a meager existence on the scarce resources that they had available. The island was covered in large stone statues that were erected by the first people to come ashore centuries ago. Research shows that these early settlers came upon an abundance of natural resources including trees. Besides the trees cut down for housing, it seems that the first colonizers cut down trees just so that they could move these large monuments into place. The trees were used up until none remained. The author then explains the concept of the water cycle and the important role that trees play in it. Without trees, the primary producer of that environment the island fell into disarray. This story of the people of Easter Island mirrors the hu...

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