Don’t Step on the Moai

In some of the pictures accompanying your article on Easter Island (“A Heady Adventure,” Oct. 24), it was surprising to see tourists walking on the carefully aligned stones and grass arranged in front of the moai displays and posing close to the statues themselves.

When we visited the island, guided by Chilean anthropologists in charge of the sites, we were strictly forbidden to approach any closer than the boundaries of the rows of stones and grass, which kept us well away from the upright figures. The recumbent figures, or partial figures, at the quarry could be approached, but the standing ones were off-limits. Were the visitors pictured not given any instructions or were they simply disregarding them?

Also, no mention was made of an important ecological factor that presumably contributed to the abandonment of the island: The inhabitants had destroyed all the trees that once grew there and had no more logs for structures, fire or, perhaps most critical, for moving the stone figures.

BERNICE JEFFREY

Sherman Oaks