A Polynesian island nearly 2,500 miles off the coast of Santiago, at only 63 square miles the Chilean territory withstands 120,000 tourists each year with the local population continuing to expand. <\/span>Eating Up Easter<\/span><\/i> illustrates the contrast between the director\u2019s father, Sergio Rapu Haoa (the first native governor of Easter Island) who is constructing a new shopping mall to provide jobs and improve living conditions, and the director himself, along with other locals who are fighting to protect their diminishing culture and the land from overdevelopment. <\/span><\/p>\n It is far from the only unique place to have its environment degraded from tourism\u2014even “eco-tourism.”<\/span><\/p>\n Hollywood Brings Wealth, NASA Builds a Runway<\/strong><\/p>\n A major catalyst for the tourism boost first happened when NASA built a runway<\/span> for the Space Shuttle on Rapa Nui in 1987. This new construction enabled larger planes to carry thousands of tourists in to see the landmark moai monoliths directly.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Additionally, globalization has put the unique Rapa Nui culture at risk, as it diminishes with each generation who isn\u2019t inspired to learn the language and customs. (To combat this, as seen in Eating Up Easter<\/em>, native Rapa Nui musicians Mahani Teave and Enrique Icka have dedicated their lives to running a free music school for the islander children where they teach traditional songs in the hopes of preserving their culture.)<\/span><\/p>\n An island previously ravaged by European missionaries, smallpox, tuberculosis, deforestation, heavy soil erosion, and the Peruvian slave trade, the few descendants of the Rapa Nui who survived understand the importance of taking pride in conservation and environmental cleanup efforts. Rapa Nui is entirely dependent on<\/span>\u00a0<\/b>naval ships and various airlines to export their waste and recycling, so naturally, they have dreams of becoming a 100% green energy community.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With travel being temporarily restricted due to COVID-19 concerns, Rapa Nui residents have successfully petitioned to stop Chile’s LATAM Airlines from making landfall, and have requested the evacuation of all tourists in an effort to stop the spread of the virus. The lockdown provides an opportunity to push for great change towards independence from tourism, as the Rapa Nui have no choice but to survive without their primary source of income for the foreseeable future. As they try to work with limited medical resources, this will call for massive restructuring of the economy. Since the travel ban, there have been (as of this writing) six total confirmed COVID-19 cases, with one still active.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With the island unfortunately positioned within the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the waste washing up on Rapa Nui shores comes from all over the world. Mama Piru, a local hero in combating the waste problem, was in charge of all the recycling operations on the island. She passed away shortly after Eating Up Easter<\/em> had wrapped, and will be remembered for dedicating her remaining years fighting to inspire locals to take charge of the pollution problem and volunteer for beach clean-up days.<\/span><\/p>\n Tourism Waste Around the World<\/strong><\/p>\n Unfortunately, Easter Island is not alone in tourism waste issues. <\/span><\/p>\n In Indonesia, <\/span>Bali<\/b> has a massive deforestation issue, with developers clearing land for hotel construction so they can handle the surge of tourists flocking due to the constant travel promotion during the age of social media.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In the Himalayas, a mountain considered sacred to the Tibetans and the Nepalese, <\/span>Mount Everest <\/b>is notorious for the exorbitant waste that climbers leave behind, forcing a large-scale volunteer clean-up effort like the one in 2019 that picked up thousands of pounds of trash from along the mountain’s ascent\u2014even if there were tons more left to go.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"poster](\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/en\/9\/94\/Rapa_Nui_film.jpg\")
The island\u2019s waste problem arose shortly after the Hollywood feature film <\/span>Rapa-Nui<\/span><\/i> production made landfall in 1993, causing locals to get a taste of independent wealth, which in turn made them purchase more products and produce more waste\u2014but without the technology and facilities to dispose of it properly.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\nA National Geographic 360\u00b0 short documentary on Mount Everest’s trash situation:<\/em><\/h6>\n