Easter Island is the most remote inhabited place on earth. It lies 2300 miles west of South America, the closest continent, and 1300 miles east of Pitcairn Island, home to the nearest neighbors, about 50 descendents of the HMAS Bounty mutineers, who took refuge there in 1789, after the mutiny. 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 limited resources (no mammals, 30 species of plants, few fish); allow them several crops but make water scarce; minimize the possibility of escape or outside influence; then 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 much slower motion. It is not a pretty picture! (next photograph)