Rebecca Manzi Rising seas could submerge Easter Island’s sacred Moai platforms by 2080. Locals already see erosion as climate change threatens both heritage and identity.
A recent scientific study has raised alarms about the cultural core of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui. Projections suggest that by 2080, rising sea levels could submerge key areas of the island, including the celebrated Ahu Tongariki—the massive stone platform lined with fifteen Moai, staring silently toward the Pacific. Recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site, this iconic structure may soon face an eerie fate: transformed into a seasonal peninsula, reached by waves that crash further inland each year.
Change is already here
For scientists, these are forecasts. For the island’s residents, the reality is already pressing. Locals say that at Ahu Tahai, ceremonial platforms are crumbling under increasingly aggressive tides. Climate change is not a distant threat but a present reality, eroding the island’s ancestral memory one wave at a time.
A cultural and spiritual wound
The ahu—the stone platforms—are not merely architectural wonders. They are also burial grounds of ancestors, places where the material and spiritual worlds converge. When the sea threatens them, it doesn’t just endanger stones or statues. It cuts into identity. As one resident put it, watching the ahu deteriorate means losing “a part of ourselves.”
Efforts to protect the ahu
A team of researchers led by Noah Paoa, himself a native of Rapa Nui, has created a high-resolution digital twin of the island’s eastern coast. Through computer models, they’ve simulated how waves might strike in different climate scenarios. The outcome is sobering: not only Tongariki but at least 51 cultural sites could suffer irreversible damage.
Solutions are being debated. Some are practical—like building breakwaters or even relocating monuments—while others call for something less tangible but just as urgent: greater international awareness. For the people of Rapa Nui, defense works matter, but so does something deeper: respect. Respect for the island, for the Moai, and for a cultural heritage that has endured for centuries, only to find itself now at the mercy of the sea.
Source: Journal of Cultural Heritage
