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“We looked at the pandemic as an opportunity to push forward with our plans to develop our island more sustainably,” Fernández Paoa said. Plus, out-of-work tour guides have trained the younger generation about the importance of the island’s archaeological sites, while dive instructors have scoured the ocean floor to remove two tonnes of rubbish. Thanks to the programme, there is now news in the local Rapa Nui language, dedicated family vegetable gardens, intricate new street signage, enhanced recycling initiatives and regular craft fairs to promote internal exchange.

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Pro Empleo has seven main objectives, she said, including insuring food security, empowering cultural exchange and beautifying the island. “We are all working together to beautify the island, to help people out and, in the end, to give a sense of umanga.” “Formerly on the island there were very few resources, so the families – no matter who, how or if they would get paid for it – always helped, and that’s what we’re all doing now,” explained Nunú Fernández Paoa, who heads up the Pro Empleo programme. In its modern form, umanga has been revived as an employment scheme called Pro Empleo Rapa Nui, which has put 700 islanders back to work, remunerating them with a modest sum. In that sense, the pandemic was a blessing in disguise, helping to turbocharge a programme that aims to make the island self-sustainable and waste-free by 2030 using umanga. Problem is, Easter Island has been so heavily dependent on mainland Chile for food, and its 100,000-odd annual tourists for income, that it hasn’t needed to function in survival mode.

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To live in a place like Easter Island, he explained, is like “being on a small boat, with a small crew, and you have to learn how to survive with all the elements you have.” “Of course, that’s not entirely possible, but we are in this process of rediscovery because it’s very important to be able to get by like we did in the past before we had the big boats, the planes and the phone connections to the outside world.” “These concepts we have, including tapu, are very important for daily life on the island, particularly in this moment, because we have returned to the old system,” he said. After successfully using it as a form of quarantine in the early days of the pandemic by restricting the movement of islanders to prohibit social contact, the government has now revived another ancient principle, umanga, or reciprocal labour between neighbours, to give islanders a shared sense of purpose.īut perhaps the tide is now beginning to turn after months of extreme isolation due to a lack of visitors – at least, that’s what Carlos Edmunds Paoa, president of the island’s Council of Elders, believes. Things that are tapu are to be left alone and may not be approached, interfered with or, in some cases, even discussed out loud. Tapu is essentially a self-care principle based on respect for the norms of nature, with spiritual restrictions and shared prohibitions at its core. “I had to come up with a way to unite us because the only enemy was the virus and the only way to confront that was to bring up the ancient concept of tapu.” The mayor says that when he shut Easter Island off from the outside world, residents were divided between those who trusted him and others who knew it would ruin the tourism-based economy. “It’s a form of discipline rooted in Polynesian culture that has to do with restrictions, but also respect.”

“Tapu is a sacred order to protect our health, to protect our life and to protect our elders and their ancient wisdom,” he explained. While Easter Island’s isolation 3,500km west of the Chilean coast certainly helped, Edmunds Paoa credits the island’s success to one key containment measure: tapu, an ancient Polynesian tradition that’s been passed down through generations.

Origin of the word scuttlebutt