Culture has many characteristics, which include that fact that it is shared and social, it is learned, it is used creatively, etc. The characteristic that is highlighted in this reading is that culture is adaptive and maladaptive. The adaptability of culture enables its people to make changes to allow them to thrive. But every culture participates in some activities that are counterproductive to its survival. Smoking is a minor example of a counterproductive behavior that exists in the world today. But the people of Easter Island had to contend with a much more serious issue: over-exploitation of resources.
             The general consensus is that Easter Island was first habited around AD 400. When early settlers arrived, they likely found a heavily forested and fertile land abundant in food and other resources. It was a miniature paradise. But such was not the case when Dutch explorer, Jacob Roggeveen, arrived in 1722. By then, Easter Island appeared to be nothing more than a wasteland. The flora consisted of only withered grasses, hay and other scorched vegetation. But how does a flourishing paradise go from such an abundance of resources to hardly supporting one tree?
             Pollen analysts determined that the destruction of Easter's bionetwork began just a few centuries after the settlers arrived. They began erecting huge stone monuments that likely required a great deal of wood for ropes and tracks to transport them. The people were cutting down the forest faster than it could regenerate. Animals shared the same fate as the forests. Every species of native bird became extinct leaving insects as the only animal life on the island. With such a lack of food resources the settlers turned on each other and began practicing cannibalism.
             The problem of disappearing forests is all too familiar to me. Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear about disappearing rainforests, lack of fresh water and decreasing amounts of fos...