Record tourism could harm Easter Island statues

[RobJohnson]

EASTER ISLAND, Chile - It's earth's most-remote inhabited land, a South Pacific speck of volcanic rock so isolated the locals call it "Te Pito O Te Henua," or "The Navel of the World."

 
But Easter Island is a bellybutton experiencing a tourist boom — and some are worried the onslaught of outsiders could take a toll on the very things they come to see, the gigantic stone heads known as Moais.

"More tourism, more deterioration. More visitors, more loss," said Susana Nahoe, an archaeologist who was a liaison between Chile's National Tourism Service and the island's scientific community before leaving the post two years ago, citing "differences in values."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20080623/ap_tr_ge/travel_trip_easter_island

Has anybody been there? Sounds like a neat vacation spot.

[DixieBelle]

And if they stop letting tourists on the island, their economy will die overnight.

[Lord Undies]

Nearly 500 carvings called Tangata Manu depict human bodies with bird heads, and Edmunds called the birdman competition "a crude form of democracy." But he said it only came after a squandering of resources led the civilization to collapse, and he warned that the same fate could befall the world.

"I see Rapa Nui as a preview of what can happen to the whole world," he said. "We went to war and destroyed ourselves. Twelve or 15 generations later, the world may do the same."

Oh look!  A liberal's lesson is taught, and as usual it takes a lot of the unknown and unproved and states it as fact.

Here's my lesson:  The statues are rocks.  They will survive.  Even if the sea claims them tomorrow the world will go on the next day. 

[Rebel Yell]

Coincidence, I think not.