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Photojournalist and filmmaker Barbara Pyle travels 2,300 miles off the coast of Chile, to Easter Island, an island known for its huge stone statues, tragic history and
unsolved mysteries. The island's population, once booming at 20,000 plummeted to a fraction of that in the 16th century. What happened?
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 Pyle meets Dr. John Loret, a scientist who has spent 40 years
studying the island and its statues. He believes Easter Island’s people, known as the Rapu-Nui, went through a period of rapid population growth and used up all their natural resources. What was the final crushing blow that to the Rapu-Nui? Dr. Loret suspects climate change is to blame. He says, “Easter Island
is a microcosm of what we’re doing to planet earth.” Join Loret and his team of seasoned scientists as they search for signs of climate change in a volcanic crater and ancient coral heads.
 Meet Sergio Rapu, a trained archaeologist and descendent of
the original island inhabitants. Sergio is helping Dr. Loret find answers to the mystery, while supervising the restoration of the island’s huge stone statues. The statues, weighing 100
tons, were built by the Rapu-Nui. Many have been destroyed by weather, age and tribal warfare. Sergio says, “The most important part of this restoration work is to allow the living people of today to
appreciate their ancestors and their heritage.”
As scientists unravel and piece together the mystery of Easter Island, will the modern world learn from the mistakes of Sergio’s ancestors and possibly avoid the same fate?
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