Saving Easter Island

Fortune Story and CNN Video I recommend reading and seeing.

Nine hundred years ago the residents of Easter Island committed ecocide.

They learned to grow plants from rocks, grouping them together to trap enough humidity to provide moisture and grow food.

So Kelsey convinced his bosses to send him back on Autodesk's dime and create a base map that would allow the municipality to create a planning scheme, fix what's broken, track the erosion, encourage sustainable development, and think about where to move the landfill. (My comment – Might not be any trips this year because of the cost savings at Autodesk.)

The plan was to secure GPS coordinates and scans of significant artifacts and then overlay them on a map with Haoa's data, cadastral information from the municipality, topographical charts, and satellite imagery.

Via The Dirt (a lot about Civil 3D) that has several blog posts on the subject as well as the Easter Island Project Diary. All involved are really commendable.