A recent casino project on Easter Island sparked outrage and opposition. But was a casino on Rapa Nui really such a bad idea? James Marrison investigates...
Measuring only 60 square miles and with its nearest neighbour over 1,200 miles away, Easter Island is one of the most remote places on earth. Famous for the statues built there by the Polynesians who discovered it and made it their home around 400-600 AD, the unique culture that developed on this tiny isolated spot has made Easter Island one of the most important archaeological sites in the world.
In the 1970s, Easter Island (or Rapa Nui as it is known by its inhabitants) attracted literally a handful of tourists a year - most of whom were archaeologists. But over the years, the number of tourists visiting the island has risen dramatically, transforming Rapa Nui into a tourist hotspot and changing it forever. Today, with even far greater accessibility and increased numbers of flights, the amount of tourists has shot to record levels. With a population of less than 4,000, last year Easter Island welcomed a massive 45,000 visitors.
Tourism is now the island’s biggest industry, bringing in around US$20m a year and the income from tourism is badly needed. Easter Island became a Chilean colony in 1888 and still comes under the protection and jurisdiction of the Chilean Government.
Although the government does contribute a significant amount of its annual budget to Easter Island, Rapa Nui is still badly lacking in infrastructure and millions of dollars are needed to improve its roads and utilities, which are barely adequate for the local population. However, tourism on Easter Island is an especially double-edged sword.
The biggest fear is that its inhabitants are fast losing their cultural identity in the face of the increasing numbers of tourists who are flocking to the island. With almost daily flights from Chile and frequent cruise ships dropping off up to 100 people at a time, some are starting to wonder if the number of tourists on the island are sustainable - or even desirable.
In fact, ever since the island was discovered by Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen in 1722, the relationship between Rapa Nui and the outside world has been fraught with tension and conflict. Initial contact with the wider world for the islanders meant initially epidemics then slavery and then (very broadly speaking) a further 250 years of utter neglect interspersed with ruthless exploitation. The fact that many decisions directly affecting them are still made 2,500 miles away on the Chilean mainland is further cause for bitterness and resentment.
All of these issues came to a head this year when it was announced that local businessman and landowner Pedro Riraroko was planning on applying to the government in Chile for a casino licence on the island, which is affected by Chile’s new gaming law, passed in January of 2005. The law is the country’s widest and most sweeping gaming law to date and allows the granting of 17 new casino licenses, taking the number of casinos in Chile up to 24. It also opened up the door for a casino on Easter Island.
When the news was announced that there could be a casino on Easter Island, there was uproar - especially when it was learnt that the proposal on the table was a joint venture between the local businessman and a Chilean-owned company, the Javier Martinez Group. The issue cut to the very core of Easter Island’s politics and raised questions over sovereignty and cultural identity, quickly bringing back age old fears and tensions back to the surface.
Concern over what a casino might mean for the island was perhaps best summarised in a cartoon run in El Mecurio, one of the best-selling newspapers in Chile. The cartoon showed a croupier taking the money from a starving inhabitant as one the famous Easter Island statues looks solemnly down in disapproval. At the front of the picture, another starving native, having just lost his entire savings, puts a gun to his head.
There were almost daily demonstrations, not only on Easter Island but on the mainland as well, and native islanders were quick to rally together in their opposition. The influential National Committee of Indigenous Development - made up of native islanders - was just one of the groups opposed to the casino. They were soon joined by groups of archaeologists, economist and students who on September 23, gathered in front of the government in order to deliver a signed letter of opposition to President Ricardo Lagos.
According to opposition groups, the casino would transform the island into a den of mafia-controlled money laundering and prostitution and in return for very little economic benefit. The 160+ jobs that the casino was expected to create would, they argued, be immediately outsourced to skilled and experienced workers from the mainland while the islanders would only get the more menial jobs in return.
Worse still, so they argued, the skilled workers would bring their families with them, creating an estimated further 300 new members on the island all of whom would enjoy some of the top salaries - causing further problems with inflation and housing. Meanwhile, the casino would immediately be the most prosperous business on the island and its impact on smaller businesses would be catastrophic.
But was a casino really such a bad idea? “Rapa Nui is a tiny island and with limited resources and with lots of problems,” one islander told InterGaming. “How would we deal with the extra garbage, trash and sewage? Today the landfill is full and pit latrines have to be used and there is no sewage treatment system. The aquifer is running low, and where would we get more drinking water? The island is perfect for the kind of tourism that focuses on hiking, exploring around the island, scuba diving, horseback riding - low-impact tourism.
“Bringing in ‘high-rollers’ to spend their time at gaming tables is so out of the spirit of the island as to be laughable. Virtually all the Rapanui were against the casino idea; the only ones who favoured the project stood to benefit financially by leasing their land for the casino. They said a casino would bring jobs to islanders, but you and I know what kind of jobs. Janitor, motel maid…Rapa Nui is one of the most evocative and lovely islands in the world. Let’s not spoil it.”
The criticism didn’t stop there. According to islanders InterGaming spoke to, a casino would ‘utterly destroy’ the already fragile equilibrium on the island. The ethnic members of the island, as some argued, already had serious problems with alcohol and domestic violence. A casino would only make these problems worse.
According to some islanders it wouldn’t even help tourism. It is the archaeological treasures and peace and quiet that is the draw for tourists and those that come here, they said, are not looking for five star luxury hotels or wild nightlife.
“A casino on the island would have meant that Rapa Nui would be the only World Heritage Site with a casino,” another resident told us. “It is a place of culture, not gaming. In my opinion, if you want to go to a casino, go to Las Vegas, go to gaming areas that have the established infrastructure and resources.
“I know the family that wanted to provide the land for the casino. They are a great family, very giving and caring. They saw this as a great opportunity for the island. They thought it would bring jobs, money (but only for a small majority), create infrastructure, and maybe attract more or certain types of tourist. However, with 45,000 tourists last year, does the island need any more?”
Yet, the project was part of a wider plan encompassing a shopping and cultural centre, a cinema and a restaurant. The Martinez group, under the Enjoy label, already runs four casinos in Chile and has plans to open a further five. The Martinez group hoped to invest around $14m on the island and build a casino with 220 slot machines, seven gaming tables along with three roulette wheels.
And not everyone was opposed to the casino. While many islanders fear that their culture and customs will be lost forever if tourist numbers continue to rise, the main problem is not the number of tourists but the fact that they only come to stay for a short while. The money they bring in is simply not enough to pay for the urgent investment needed to alleviate the islands beleaguered infrastructure.
A recent survey into tourism charged with calculating the number of tourists that Easter Island could viably accommodate each year came to the conclusion that the it could not sustain more than 150,000 tourists per year. What the survey also found was that the island urgently needed to find ways of diversifying the attractions it had to offer and encourage visitors to stay for longer.
On average, tourists on Easter Island only stay for three or four days and spend on average $100 a day, which gives Rapa Nui $16m. If the island could somehow manage to persuade visitors to stay for four to eight days, the money could be duplicated.
One of the most outspoken supporters of the Enjoy casino project was the Easter Island Mayor Petero Edmunds. According to Edmunds in an interview with Tell magazine, the government was trying to offer more diversity in tourist packages and was inviting tourist investment.
The Enjoy project, he said: “Is about a zone where you can go and see a show with a Rapa Nui ballet. Where you can enjoy the local cuisine. Where you can see how a local craftsman works and it also about a gaming room. This last part of the project was what my adversaries took and emphasised ‘casinos’ but the idea at the heart of it was pointing to a series of programmes that would help hold the tourist here for a few days longer.”
But despite what the casino could have offered, it was recently rejected by the Chilean Gaming Commission. The casino was to be built on indigenous land but under Chilean Law, indigenous groups are forbidden to lease or rent their land for a period of more than five years. At the same time, Article 13 of the of the new gaming law states that casino licences must run for no less than 15 years.
In order to get around this, the proposal on the table was to provide a casino with a licence that would be renewed automatically every five years for 20 years. But this was not enough to satisfy the newly-established Gaming Commission. The casino was completely rejected on the grounds that it would not satisfy the terms of its licence as set out by Chile’s new casino law.
The casino, according to Edmunds, would have brought in up to $2.5m a year net which, he said, would be drop in the ocean for what the island requires in order to improve its infrastructure.
Although the idea of a casino on Easter Island sounded somehow wrong to many, there is no doubt that Easter Island needs to hold on to its tourists for longer and persuade the visitor that it has even more to offer than its wonderful archaeological heritage and natural splendour. But the casino project was not to be and, in the end, despite the vociferous support and emotive protests it all came down to a legal technicality.
