Once one understands the concept of an ecology, the idea that an isolated island of a few hundred square kilometers isn't going to maintain a stable population of any mammal larger than a mouse for very long isn't much of a stretch. It doesn't seem to me that such an environment is a good laboratory/model for the environment on the continents; the scaling is not linear and the effects are different.

Cranky

But as a scientist I cannot ignore the problems with the accepted narrative of the island's prehistory. Mistakes or exaggerations in arguments for protecting the environment only lead to oversimplified answers and hurt the cause of environmentalism.

That's an attitude I wish was more common in the environmentalist movement.

So they put Basil in the Rapa Nui. Is that what Hunt is saying?

Diamond's book contains the poignant image of the last tree on Easter Island being cut down. Were there any trees left when Europeans arrived? That seems like a key fact that is left out.

In any case, Diamond is a scientist and would, I assume, be willing to change his views if presented with new evidence. That is not always true of scientists though--hence the concept of the paradigm shift. A fundamental change in thinking on a particualr scientific topic rarely happens overnight, no matter how good the evidence. The scientists who championed the old idea eventually retire and die and are replaced by champions of the new idea.

Given this about scientists, it is hardly surprosing that non-scientists (including environmentalists) have a hard time accepting new data. I would contend that anti-environmentalists are equally as stubborn!

A society that destroyed itself, or at least much of its environment, through its own ignorance is an improvement?

Agreed, rosignol. Diamond's friend Paul Ehrlich hasn't been open to evidence much. Buuuuuut . . . as I pointed out in my blog post on this excellent article

http://blogs.chicagoreader.com/daily-harold/2006/08/22/easter-island-did-rats-destroy-it/,

the professional anti-environmentalists also need to adopt this point of view, rather than using these new scientific findings as a platform for arguing that environmental concerns are unfounded across the board.

For me, the message is that a milder form of environmentalism is justified. Specifically, humans often bring species to new environments that have huge impacts and that we should really care about this. In this case, the author argues that the transportation of the polynesian rat completely changed the Easter Island ecosystem.

Species transplantation is less sexy than the typical green alarmism, but it is probably a genuine problem. For example, new species might devastate native species that provide food or shelter to people. New species can also become nuisances and even have damaging effects on economies (see the case of the plants that now clog parts of certain rivers). And of course, if we intrinsically value species, for aesthetic or other reasons, we should be alarmed when they are wiped out by new species.

So while this article is a refutation of the most alarmist environmentalist interpretations of Easter island history, it still points to a real problem that doesn't yet have a decent solution.

European visitors seem to be the primary predictor of native destruction in that part of the word. Randy Newman's song "The Great Nations of Europe" captures this with exquisite black humor.

The idea that non-native species are an unequivocally bad thing, though, is nonsense. It all depends on whether we like the new ecology better than the old one. Taro isn't native to Hawaii, for example.

How long does a species have to exist in a given environment before it's considered "native"? Aren't all so-called "native" species just "invasive" species that got there first? It sometimes seems that the only acceptable state of the planet for environmentalists is a static, unchanging one -- no migration, no evolution, no extinction, no speciation.

It sometimes seems that the only acceptable state of the planet for environmentalists is a static, unchanging one -- no migration, no evolution, no extinction, no speciation.

It's nice to see I'm not the only one who has noticed that.

The current crop of environmentalists (not necessarily the scientists, but the rank-and-file types out in the streets) seem to think that the world has always been as it is now, despite all evidence to the contrary, and that any significant change must be due to human activity.

Again, dashed lines through all but the first line of every paragraph and all comments posted at the same time. Why is this?

It's been a while since I read Collapse but it seems to me Diamond focused on the moai and the social and ecological infrastructure needed to sculpt, move, and erect these figures. The idea that this infrastructure collapsed suddenly is borne out by the number of moai abandoned in various stages of completion and transport. The timing and proximate cause of the collapse may be challenged, but I don't see anything in the article to challenge the underlying thesis--the Easter Islanders did not have a social structure capable of managing their environment.

I read a history of Easter Island about 50 years ago, written by Thor Heyerdahl.

It suggested that the Polynesians killed off most of the moai makers.

What happenned? Did the past change? Did I miss something?

Commenters made a good point in that there is no intrinsic reason to care that a species moves to a new environment. No ecological system is static. But as I mentioned earlier, new species are occassionally dangerous/annoying to humans or the animals they depend on. We might also care for aesthetic reasons. If the pandas all died because the polynesian rat ate all the good bamboo, I think we'd be missing a very good looking animal!

It sometimes seems that the only acceptable state of the planet for environmentalists is a static, unchanging one -- no migration, no evolution, no extinction, no speciation.

Remember that the important thing is what happens at the margin. If the truth is that we're making inpredictable ecological changes far too quickly, it doesn't matter how silly the most doctrinaire ecology fans are while they're pulling in the right direction.

If at some time we divide the world into many small ecological zones and we are careful never to allow transfer of new species across zones until after careful stufy for 2000 to 5000 years, at that point econuts who want to bring the rate of change to zero will become a concern.

If the truth is that we're making inpredictable ecological changes far too quickly, it doesn't matter how silly the most doctrinaire ecology fans are while they're pulling in the right direction.

Actually, it damn well does matter.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf was right the last time, but because he had lied so many times before he was understandably ignored.

You can only set off people's bullshit-alarms so many times before they stop listening - and if the results are bad then it is the bullshitter who bears the moral responsibility, not the people who failed to listen the one time he wasn't lying.

There is a great article about this topic called From Genocide to Ecocide: The Rape of Rapa Nui, part of which can be found here:
http://anthropology.tamu.edu/RapaNui.html
with full pdf here:
http://www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/EE%2016-34_Peiser.pdf