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Introduction
The current focus of policymakers on sustainability can be seen as a demonstration of the concern of states with the future. The rapid industrial development accompanied by population growth in various societies is a point of concern for different governments, for which several developments and sustainable practices are conducted. One of the major reasons for concerns can be seen through the examples of societies that failed and or declined due to their unsustainable practices in the past. In that regard, the current paper takes the example of Iceland as a society that lives successfully and sustainably due to government practices, and contrast it with an example from the past, the society of Easter Island, a vivid representative of an ecological collapse, which causes include, but not limited to, the non-sustainable use of a crucial renewable resource (Foot 11).
Analysis
The significance of Easter Island as a lesson to the current generation cannot be overestimated. In addition to the most recognizable characteristic of the island, the 30-feet statue –moai, there is another important aspect directly related to such characteristic (Foot 13). Such aspect is the population of Easter Island, where the number of statues and their size on the island suggests that there was a larger population inhibiting the island in ancient times (Diamond 81). One of the main resources used by the island’s population was wood. Wood’s main characteristic, as a renewable resource, is that it takes time to renew (Foot 11). There are other resources that were used by the population of the island, including birds, fish, turtles, porpoises, and open-ocean fish like tuna. All of those sources virtually disappeared from the island, although researches show that they were once a part of this environment.
Moreover, Easter, which today supports not a single species of native land bird, was “formerly home to at least six of them” (Diamond 104). The same can be said about seabirds, where it was found that Easter was formerly the largest breeding location “in all of Polynesia and probably in the whole Pacific” (104). However, trees can be seen as one of the main resources, the exhausting use of which in the case of the Easter Island proved to be critical to their demise. The most popular theory that explains the failure of the society is attributed to deforestation, a behavioral which in this context was referred to as a cultural suicide, i.e. exploiting the forest eco-base in a way that did not give it time to renew, and thus, eventually destroyed it (Foot 15). Such destruction can be seen through the parallel between the way the islanders used trees and the importance of trees for the ecosystem of the island. The islanders relied heavily on trees and wood in their daily lives; they were used for housing, cooking, and heating, and at the same time they were also simply cut to make the land available for agriculture. The destruction of trees leads to the destruction of birds that used trees as nesting places. The destruction of trees led eventually to the erosion of soil after which the agriculture was destroyed as well, and the inability to build canoes, the fish catches declined (Foot 16).
The ultimate reason for the failure of the society is ignorance of the consequences of using all the resources of the environment. The results of such lesson can be seen through the way a successful society -Iceland, makes attempts to prevent such catastrophe ion the future. The reasons for which Iceland took the path of sustainability include the protection of the environment, economic growth, and social welfare (The Ministry for the Environment in Iceland 9). All of those aspects are interrelated, which can be seen through the example of the Easter Island. In a modern context, the economic growth, led to that the people began to consider the impact they made on the environment, and the longevity of the resources available. In order for the protection of the environment not to prevent economic growth, a balance should be found. Such balance is the main focus of sustainable development. The example of Easter Island showed wood as the key renewable resource, the destruction of which dragged the destruction of other resources, being a part of an ecosystem. In modern times, such resources are fossil fuels, which are not renewable, and thus, in Iceland, the government managed to eliminate the case where the country will rely on a limited resource. Thus, in Iceland, 70% the energy use comes from clean and renewable energy resources, such as hydro, wind, solar and geothermal energy, “the largest percentage of any developed country” (The Ministry for the Environment in Iceland 18). Additionally, Iceland can become the first country that will cease the use of fossil fuel. Iceland pays considerable attention to food sources, such as fish. Being an important part of the Island’s economy, the government focused on using marine resources in a way that the capacity of marine stocks, not only was maintained, but also increased (The Ministry for the Environment in Iceland 17). Thus, monitoring the ocean’s ecosystem and pollution and promoting according legislative acts, such as Reykjavik Declaration on Responsible Fisheries and Fisheries Management Act, is one of the ways Iceland addresses the sustainability of its marine resources.
Conclusion
It can be seen through comparing two societies, one of which had many attractive features –Easter Island, and the other environmentally fragile –Iceland, that the main aspect predicting the success or the failure of the society is ignorance about the surrounding environment and the relations between various elements of the eco system. One society exhausted all of the resources of its environment, eventually destroying one of the sophisticated cultures, while the other, managed to overcome the fragility of its environment to raise from being one of the poorest countries in Europe to become of the richest countries in the world on a per capita basis. In cases, the failure and the success of the societies was within the hands of their respective populations.
Works Cited
Diamond, Jared M. Collapse : How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking, 2005. Print.
Foot, David K. “Easter Island: A Case Study in Non-Sustainability.” Greener Management International.48 (2004): 11-20. Print.
The Ministry for the Environment in Iceland. “Welfare for the Future: Iceland’s National Strategy for Sustainable Development 2002-2020”. 2002. The Ministry for the Environment in Iceland. Web.
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