Easter Island is the most remote inhabited island on earth. It lies 2300 miles west of Chile and 1300 miles east of Pitcairn, the closest inhabited island and home to the mutineers after the famous mutiny on HMAS Bounty in 1789. This lonely, tiny outpost is an obscure chapter in the human story that just might reveal the way to grace.

Easter Island is like an ad hoc sociological experiment along roughly these lines: take 25 people, more or less, and maroon them on a small island with a very simple biology, allow them several crop species but make water scarce, minimize the possibility of escape or outside influence, and check back after, say, a thousand years. And so we did.

The story of Easter Island provides us with a striking example of the dependence of our species on a healthy environment. It is a microcosm of what is happening to our planet right now, only in slower motion. It is not a pretty picture! (continued with next photograph)