Rapa Nui's Stone Statues and Marine Resources Face Threats from Climate Change

By Orlando Milesi

HANGA ROA, Chile, Feb 14 2019 (IPS) - Social activists and local authorities in Rapa Nui or Easter Island are calling for urgent action to address rising sea temperatures, declining rainfall, and rising tides that threaten their fishing resources and their Moais, the mysterious volcanic stone monoliths.

On this island in the Polynesia region of the Pacific Ocean, 3,800 kilometers from the coast of Chile, to which it belongs, the effects of climate change are already evident.

Ludovic Burws, a teacher at the Hanga Roa Educational Village, the island’s primary and secondary school, says that with “rising water temperatures some corals are beginning to bleach” on the shores of Rapa Nui.

“You look at the island and now (in February) it should be yellow, but it’s green. There is a seasonal lag. It’s raining more at a time when it shouldn’t be. The rains are heavier, shorter and very intense, causing erosion that reaches the sea and covers the corals,” he told IPS.

“The temperature has risen, but mixed with the garbage, a new algae has been generated at a depth of 80 meters (still under study), which begins to grow and eat the coral,” said Burws, who is also a technical advisor to the organisation Te Mau o te Vaikava o Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui Ocean Round Table).

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/2019/02/rapa-nuis-stone-statues-marine-resources-face-threats-climate-change/