An uptick in yearly visit to the celebrated Easter Island is bring with it the potential for trouble as local population take to balance increase tourism in an already fragile ecosystem .
An estimated 150,000 yearly visitant come to Rapa Nui , one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world . According to a limited presentation of CBS'60 Minutesdedicated to the island , archeology experts and local communities are working to cope with increased tourism that has an encroachment both on the culture of endemic people and the remote ecosystem .
" When I went to Easter Island for the first clip in ' 81 , the identification number of people who call in per class was about 2,500 , " said Jo Ann Van Tilburg , director of theEaster Island Statue Project , in astatement . " As of last year , the number of tourists who get was 150,000 from around the earthly concern . "
Van Tilburg has been go to the island for the last several decades since first inspect as a graduate educatee in archaeology . Today , she is working alongside the people of Rapa Nui to better see its chronicle through perspectives of elders .
" By Rapa Nui standards , on an island where electrical energy is render by a author , H2O is precious and depleted , and all the base is stressed , 150,000 is a mob , " she suppose , noting that some travelers disesteem local acculturation by trample on top of tomb and climbing the statues , portray a danger to both the island and its polish .
The island was first mark in western lit when Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen bring on it on Easter Sunday , April 5 , 1722 , though the people who lived on it at the prison term were Polynesian descendants of a monolithic human migration some five centuries originally . Rapa Nui is best know for its secret Moai statue place on it sometime between 1,100 and 1,400 years ago . Theirpurposeand whodunit of how they got where they are have transfix the world ever since , down the island a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation in 1995 .
In 2003 , Van Tilburg was give license from Chile ’s national park organization and council on monuments to excavate the statues . Her oeuvre lead to the find that the statue also have torsos buried late below the surface – a credit entry she grant to her community - establish archaeologic body of work .
" I think my forbearance and diligence was rewarded , " she said . " They saw me all those years getting really dirty doing the work . What they do n’t like is when citizenry come and think they have all the answer and then leave . That feels to the Rapa Nui like their history is being co - opted . "
Van Tilburg says take the island is a manner to translate human migration and how marginalized smart set grow and come down . Societal changes brought on by settlement and striver - trading in the 19th one C eventually led to the collapse of the local universe when number dropped to just 100 .
Today , around 5,700 residents local residents allow local governance over the island .
