Easter Island no longer wants the tourism of before

(Hanga Roa) The people of Easter Island have survived two years without the financial windfall of mass tourism due to the pandemic. While visitors are always welcome, the Rapa Nui natives now want to perpetuate a rediscovered ancestral way of life, protect their island and resist the temptation of returning to the old world.

“The moment that the elders predicted has finally arrived,” Julio Hotus, a member of the Council of Elders of Easter Island, isolated in the middle of the Pacific, 3,500 km from the Chilean coast, and world famous, told AFP. for its hundreds of monumental statues, the moai.

The elders of the Rapa Nui people had, he said, insisted on the importance of ensuring the island’s food self-sufficiency. A warning that recent generations have pretended to listen to.

And overnight in March 2020, the 7,000 permanent inhabitants of the 24 km long and 12 wide island cut off all air links with the outside world to protect themselves from SARS CoV-2.

back to earth

Olga Ickapakarati used to sell small stone moai figurines to tourists, but had to resolve to find the gestures of her ancestors and cultivate the land.

“We found ourselves with nothing so we started gardening” around the wooden house and its tin roof, she told AFP.

In order for the population to meet their needs, the municipality of Easter Island had urgently set up a seed distribution program and Olga planted tomatoes, spinach, beets, chard and celery, but also herbs: basil, oregano, coriander.

What she did not consume, she gave to other families, who in turn shared their harvest with others, thus forming a vast network of mutual aid.

“All islanders are like that, they wear their hearts on their sleeves. If I see that I have enough (vegetables), I give it to another family”, adds this “Nua” or grandmother in the Rapa Nui language, who lives with her children and grandchildren.

Two years freed from the frenzy of mass tourism, the inhabitants of the island have experienced a new life and today do not want to go back to the pre-pandemic period which saw 11 weekly planes landing 160,000 tourists each year.

“We are going to continue tourism, but I hope the pandemic has been a lesson that we will remember for the future”, breathes Julio Hotus.

On Thursday, after 28 months of isolation, a plane landed for the first time, generating excitement among residents who longed to see new faces.

The reopening to tourism will be gradual with two flights per week, but the frequency will gradually increase. For the time being, the big hotels remain closed.

Vulnerable moai

The forced isolation has also led the Rapa Nui people to reflect on the urgent need to take care of natural resources: access to water and the production of green energy.

Priority will also be given to the inhabitants of the island in terms of jobs, in application of “cultural codes” such as the Tapu, an ancestral rule which promotes solidarity, explains the mayor of Easter Island, Pedro Edmunds Paoa.

“The tourist, from today, becomes a friend of the place, whereas before he was a foreigner who visited us”, he adds.

The sculpted moai which can reach 20 meters high and weigh 80 tons, emblems of Easter Island with the mysteries that surround them, are also at the center of new reflections.

“Climate change, with these extreme events, endangers our archaeological heritage”, warns Vairoa Ika, director of the environment of the municipality.

“The stone is degrading, so the parks will take their measures and protect them,” she explains without further details.

“The problem with moai is that they are very fragile […] We must leave aside the tourist and landscape vision and take good care of these pieces and protect them”, because “they have an incalculable value”, adds Julio Hotus, hoping that his advice as an elder will be listened to.