Easter Island in many ways can be seen as a possible future for the earth itself, primarily because it shows the devistating results of overuse of resources. Easter Island today has virtually no trees on it, but in fact a few hundered years ago the entire island was covered with trees. What exactly happened to them? Well, there are multiple theories about this. One is that the settlers of the island brought rats that ate the seeds of the trees and thereby stopped the expansion of the species. Then, the overuse of the 
resources by the natives of the island began to depleat the tree population. The native’s would use the trees as rollers to move statues into place and also as their main source of fuel and building materials. After the tree population was all but wiped out, birds ceased flying to nest on the island, and wood became almost impossible to find. This wood was needed in order to build and maintain boats. This made fishing increasingly difficult and escape from the island impossible. The lack of wood also made errecting more statues impossible, which put tremendous stress on the social organization. In addition to this, soil errosion began to take place which today has had a massive effect. The outcome of this disaster is simple; the island’s natives were thrown into chaos, and the civilization was forever crippled. Now, by looking at this example, it becomes easier to see why we should all work to preserve our planet’s resources. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_island
http://www.apj.co.uk/rapanui/display_article.asp?specifier=history
