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It was a flood of Biblical proportions. Well, okay, maybe not exactly but it was a heckuva flood and when it happens — and it happens every once in a while in this subtropical paradise — folks always start talking about how much we contribute to the flooding.

What do you mean, we contribute to the flooding? We are responsible for the deluge. Any place with 30 inches more rain than typical will flood. Sure, no doubt. But just as sure is the reality that in Florida, a paradise barely above sea level, we need to be careful how we build our urban jungle on top of the native jungle.

A lesson can be learned from Easter Island. Scientists from around the globe are gaining new insight into the history — both natural and man-made — of Easter Island in the southern Pacific Ocean.

You know Easter Island, of course. It’s that spot way Down Yonder, known for its isolation and those giant stone statues. Because it’s so isolated — 2,000 miles west of South America and 1,400 miles from the nearest habitable island — the demise of Easter Island’s population makes it a “mini-Earth” right on Earth and could teach us some valuable lessons.

Through research and excavations on Easter Island, combined with carbon dating and pollen analysis of ancient garbage heaps, scientists have concluded that as many as 20,000 people might have called it home once. The island was once a lush, forested, sub-tropical paradise, much like South Florida. Today, Easter Island is a nearly barren rock. What happened to the people, the flora and fauna?

The people happened.

They overconsumed, in some cases even themselves. Carbon dating indicates the earliest evidence of human activity on Easter Island was around 700 A.D. — again in a lush paradise. Further research indicates those people ate a lot of porpoise as well and sea birds and land birds. To catch the porpoises, the ancient islanders used large canoes carved from abundant palm trees. They also used trees for tools, rope and other products and for cooking fuel.

In short, evidence now exists that by 800 A.D. the deforestation of Easter Island was well under way. By the time Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen came upon the island in 1722 (on Easter Sunday) he reported the spot to be a wasteland, barren and sandy. The islanders, he reported, were gaunt and frail and paddled out to meet him in rickety, leaky canoes. Over the centuries, the islanders had eaten themselves literally out of house and home and destroyed every single natural resource available to them. Sure, it’s an extreme example. But Earth is an island, too.

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Steve Hart is a sailor, angler, explorer, raconteur, amateur citrus-grower and semi-professional theologian who masqueraded as a Florida journalist and pundit for the last 25 years. A fifth-generation Floridian, Hart comes from solid cracker stock but revels in the changing face of 21st century Florida and its patchwork quilt of people, their cultures, traditions, shades and ideas. His book, “Tales from Down Yonder, Florida,” is available in local bookstores and on the Web at www.downyonderflorida.com.