When I traveled to Rapa Nui in November 2001, the third IPCC report released as a result of the COP-6 on climate change in Bonn, held in July, began to circulate. Its content warned of the effects that climate change would have on the small islands: erosion (the volcanic soils of Rapa Nui have a depth of 45 to 60 centimeters); damage to coastal ecosystems; risks of forest fires and vulnerability in the water supply (there is a shortage on the island due to the low retention capacity caused by deforestation and the porosity of the land).
These problems began to worry the rulers, but also the Chilean authorities and OPET (Organisation for the Promotion of Energy Technologies) of Mercosur. I had the opportunity to attend a seminar held at the Santiago Technological Research Corporation (INTEC) (1) where I presented our ecological proposals for the island. On that occasion, I was accompanied by Cipriano Marín, a UNESCO official dedicated to promoting the energies of the sun through the Insula association. Years later I conveyed my disappointment that Rapa Nui's declaration as a World Heritage Site had not promoted a plan to mitigate the impact of climate change on this extraordinary archaeological legacy.
The situation we detected was serious: uncontrolled dumps in Orito and Avaihu, as was the oldest in Hanga Hemu; absence of recycling technologies; contamination and spillage of dielectric oils used in General Electric's diesel generators (close to 8,000 liters per year); lack of an efficient treatment plant; pesticides used in local agriculture…
We proposed the immediate drafting of an Agenda 21 (an integrated and participatory environmental management agreed at the Rio-92 Summit) and we expressed our concern to President Michele Bachelet by means of a letter dated January 24, 2006, just as we did on January 24. November 2002 to His Royal Highness the then Prince of Asturias, who had visited the island in 1997 to attend the launching of the Mata-Rangi reed raft with which the explorer Kitín Muñoz intended to reach Polynesia.
In the year of our trip, the powerful public company SASIPA (a subsidiary of the Development Corporation-CORFO) controlled the services of water, electricity, livestock, and loading and unloading of ships. No local entity had requested an energy and environmental audit. The same day we visited the company, dozens of oil drums had been spilled on land near the Mataveri airport. We hope that over time SASIPA has improved its environmental management and its information transparency.
After a hopeful master plan of the municipality called "Educational Village", which at the beginning of the century tried to integrate energy and environmental problems, in recent years the AMOR project has emerged; an acrostic that entails promoting a Self-sustaining community, in which continuous Improvements are made that offer greater Development Opportunities and Respect the natural ecosystem. However, LOVE has not brought radical changes.
It has not prevented, for example, the increase in the volume of plastic waste; that the number of polluting vehicles approaches 4,000 (300 to 400 registered each year) and that the aspiration of receiving one hundred thousand tourists a year continues. Currently there is a car for every two inhabitants and the emissions generated by this park are a danger for the protection of the archaeological heritage. The privileged tourists should visit the monuments on foot or by bicycle; in small solar or electric buses. If nothing changes the situation will become unsustainable. “We have to get the scrap metal off the island!” exclaims Mayor Pedro Edmunds.
There has also been a commitment from local authorities to standardize the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (ODC) agreed by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2015. A roadmap perhaps excessive for daily action that has a budget insufficient. Are we facing another toast to the sun?
Covid could have been a period to rethink the model. But that health crisis was not taken advantage of to change the course and once again the desire for growth and developmental vortex has resurfaced. There are two historical events that affected the life of the Rapanuis and that introduced the "American way of life": the USAF military base installed between 1965 and 1970, abandoned with the arrival of Salvador Allende at La Moneda, and the filming in 1993 from the movie “Rapa Nui”, by Kevin Reynolds produced by Kevin Costner. But to be effective, climate change mitigation requires opting for values opposite to those introduced by those invasions of the dollar culture.
The future of the Rapanuis is now more uncertain. The fires that occurred in October 2022 are a warning of what awaits them and have been a tragedy that reveals the lack of control of agricultural and livestock practices in areas of archaeological heritage. Control of tourists has recently been improved with new roads, protective fences and restricted access. But these precautions did not prevent the fire caused by the "controlled" burning of nine hectares of pasture on the slopes of Rano Raraku.
The force of the wind allowed the flames to destroy one hundred hectares and damage eighty moai that have been completely charred. There is a danger that the soft stone will decompose. It has not yet been announced how its restoration will be carried out. What does UNESCO expect?
Another issue to be resolved is how to restore the looted archaeological remains to the Rapanui people. In the same way that Norway agreed to return the pieces that Thor Heyerdahl took as a result of his explorations, the English should do so with the famous moai Hoa Hakananaia exhibited at the British Museum in London and that was stolen from the Orogo ceremonial in 1868 by the expedition of the ship HMS Topaze. This fair claim was contradicted by a failed attempt in 2010 to move a moai from ahu Tongariki to be exhibited in Paris under the patronage of the Louis Vuitton foundation.
Rapa Nui urgently requires financial help (perhaps from entities such as the Development Bank of Latin America) to be able to protect its heritage and plan its energy transition and adaptation to climate change; especially to study how to resolve the protection of their ahus against the rise in sea level.
Tongariki's may fall again; Ovahe beach, with its fine pink sand, the product of a mixture of eroded volcanic slag and white coral, the only redoubt of the original coastal flora, such as the “boerhavia acutifolia”, may disappear in the next decade. There are also fears for the cemetery that is located a few meters from the ocean. The increase in meteorological phenomena, such as major storms and violent hurricanes, has been noted, once again, in the sixth IPCC report.
70% of the Poike peninsula is affected by erosion. The vegetation cover of the island does not reach 5%, a question that also worried the expedition carried out by Jacques-Yves Cousteau in 1976. An erroneous reforestation with non-native species such as eucalyptus also contributes to this. We must rule out aid to build hotel macro-installations, golf course projects (happily rejected) or highly water-consuming leisure centers. Let's remember that the only freshwater reserves are found in the craters of Rano Kau, Rano Raraku and Rano Aroi.
True, the government of Gabriel Boric, does not fulfill what was promised. "He is a liar," denounced Mayor Pedro Edmunds to the media. The tenant of La Moneda did not comply with the aid due to the fires and does not meet the demands for self-government that the island claims. But the mayor's skilful and popular vehemence also requires self-criticism and that the Rapanuis agree to rectify the growth model. Above all, energy self-sufficiency must be achieved through the intensive development of solar energy. It is also possible to study the implementation of wind power, perhaps at the top of Maunga Tere Vaka, the highest peak on the island, on the Maunga Orito, Maunga Vai Ohao or Puna Pau ("Mana-Vai-Tokerau") hill, which means the "Nest of Winds", making these facilities compatible with the landscape impact. According to a study by René Waldo Pakarati Icka, from the Catholic University of Valparaíso, wind power could cover 64%, perhaps more, of energy demand (2).
Food self-sufficiency would entail a plan to reconvert all agriculture on the island to organic, especially the more than fifty existing farms. These farmers could be helped to install photovoltaic solar and small wind turbines to pump water from their wells. They should progressively abandon the use of pesticides and insecticides that end up contaminating the coastline. Small biogas plants are also an ecological proposition for agricultural waste.
It is necessary to introduce technologies to avoid the consumption of water, promote recycling; verify the “carrying capacity” to find out how many tourists the island can receive and define its “carbon footprint”. Another objective, politically controversial, is to regulate emigration.
There is sufficient preparation and technical capacity among the Rapanuis (which does not exempt them from requesting the international collaboration of specific centers and universities) to promote eco-development; a regenerative process that does not require any new colonization. It would be a matter of reversing the “Easter metaphor”, which Ignacio Ramonet referred to six years ago in “Le Monde Diplomatique”, in a very small-scale example of what humanity must do in a colossal way. But time passes to turn the island of the moais into an ecotopia. The emergency forces a rapid reaction of social and cultural agreement, between rulers and ruled. We have to save Rapa Nui and the future of its new generations before it is too late.
Santiago VILANOVA
Journalist and president of the association Una Sola Terra
vilanova.santiago@hotmail.com
(1) “Renewable energies and tourism. A large futures market. Possibilities in Easter Island”, Opet Mercosur Roadshow. Insula/Catalan Energy Institute (ICAEN), Santiago de Chile, November 28 and 29, 2001.
(2) René Waldo Pakarati Icka, “Application of wind energy to generate electricity on Easter Island”, Catholic University of Valparaíso, School of Electrical Engineering, 2001.
