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The recent Easter Island BBC film [0] was pretty good on this. Jared Diamond did consider all the European destruction in his book 'Collapse' but still believed

by icc97 9y ago

The recent Easter Island BBC film [0] was pretty good on this. Jared Diamond did consider all the European destruction in his book 'Collapse' but still believed that there had been a large amount of deforestation well before the first Europeans arrived in 1722. The BBC claims there were trees and the population was relatively happy when the first ship arrived. But this changed dramatically after that. Diamond claims that the 1722 expedition saw no trees over 10ft tall, and says that effectively the deforestation was 'complete' by then. Personally I believe the BBC version of events. Disease + Slavery + 70,000 sheep vs a population that had survived for 1,000 years on a tiny island. Even Diamond agrees that he doesn't understand why the islanders would cut all their own trees down when they were clearly intelligent. Edit: Here's the actual quote from the Jacob Roggeveen's journal [1]: > Nor can the aforementioned land be termed sandy, because we found it not only not sandy but on the contrary exceedingly fruitful, producing bananas, potatoes, sugar-cane of remarkable thickness and many other kinds of fruits of the earth; although destitute of large trees and domestic animals except poultry [0]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03srmm6 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03srmm6 [1]: https://archive.org/stream/voyagecaptaindo00unkngoog#page/n108/mode/2up https://archive.org/stream/voyagecaptaindo00unkngoog#page/n1...

gaius 9y ago
Personally I believe the BBC version of events The BBC has their own narrative (the rest of the world was living in peace and harmony before white Europeans spoiled everything) so I would take their opinion with a large pinch of salt.
- icc97 9y ago
  The BBC also had an documentary claiming that it was environmental collapse back in 2012 which is mentioned in the aeon article. They have now produced another with a separate view point. Irrespective of the BBC bias I still think that disease + slavery + 70,000 sheep was more likely cause for collapse.
pjc50 9y ago
I could see it either way. Only a little later Scotland was suffering from severe deforestation, which was only reversed in the 20th century by plantation forestry. Samuel Johnson, 1773: "From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never seen a single tree, which I did not believe to have grown up far within the present century. Now and then about a gentleman’s house stands a small plantation, which in Scotch is called a policy, but of these there are few, and those few all very young. The variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger, and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness, except that in the road between Kirkaldy and Cowpar, I passed for a few yards between two hedges. A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice." Scotland was also to be transformed by sheep farming.

by icc97 9y ago

gaius 9y ago

Personally I believe the BBC version of events The BBC has their own narrative (the rest of the world was living in peace and harmony before white Europeans spoiled everything) so I would take their opinion with a large pinch of salt.

icc97 9y ago
The BBC also had an documentary claiming that it was environmental collapse back in 2012 which is mentioned in the aeon article. They have now produced another with a separate view point. Irrespective of the BBC bias I still think that disease + slavery + 70,000 sheep was more likely cause for collapse.

pjc50 9y ago

I could see it either way. Only a little later Scotland was suffering from severe deforestation, which was only reversed in the 20th century by plantation forestry. Samuel Johnson, 1773: "From the bank of the Tweed to St. Andrews I had never seen a single tree, which I did not believe to have grown up far within the present century. Now and then about a gentleman’s house stands a small plantation, which in Scotch is called a policy, but of these there are few, and those few all very young. The variety of sun and shade is here utterly unknown. There is no tree for either shelter or timber. The oak and the thorn is equally a stranger, and the whole country is extended in uniform nakedness, except that in the road between Kirkaldy and Cowpar, I passed for a few yards between two hedges. A tree might be a show in Scotland as a horse in Venice." Scotland was also to be transformed by sheep farming.