The ecology; is it all right for humans to colonize new islands with pigs and other farm animals when there is already a native wildlife there?
Actually, it was extremely common for Polynesians to bring animals and edible plants on their voyages. It’d be stupid of them not to. You can never assume that an undiscovered island will have whatever you need to sustain yourself. Lots of wildlife in Polynesia are not native to their respective islands. In the case of Hawaii, there were no land mammals before settlers arrived here.
In terms of being in harmony with nature, that is part of the culture. In Hawaii, you still see hula dancers going up to the mountains and volcanoes to dance for Pele, other gods, or for nature in general. The ladies are shown doing so at the :50 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NhPqimnr3o Or wearing clothing that represents nature while using natural products (gourds, bamboo sticks, stones, and drums made of natural materials) during a performance. In the case of these ladies, their dresses are meant to represent a vivid sunset and each lady must pick, smooth, and use her own stones. They are said to become part of the dancer during the process.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keWtdNb0nMoThere is lots of other stuff, but dance is my “thing” when it comes to Polynesia so that’s what I speak about when it comes to culture.
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Morkel
8 years ago
I know it was normal, but it also had a destructive effect on the local wildlife. Which is of course not limited to the Polynesians, but humans all over the planet which have colonized new land.
Disney movies usually have some sort of messages these days, so a little message in that regard wouldn't hurt either. We could for instance have seen them find a pair of islands, where they decided that the neighbor island should not be colonized by farm animals to respect the wildlife already living there.
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Herengone
8 years ago
I know it was normal, but it also had a destructive effect on the local wildlife. Which is of course not limited to the Polynesians, but humans all over the planet which have colonized new land.
It doesn't have a destructive factor if there isn't anything there to begin with. Moana's story takes place before all of the islands were discovered and many didn't have anything edible. It wouldn't make any sense to say it's bad in a movie that takes place when it wasn't an issue.
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Morkel
8 years ago
If it was a naked island with no plants or animals perhaps, but that was not the case. A link that could be of interest:
http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/basch/uhnpscesu/pdfs/kirch1982.pdf
Another link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232371/
Approximately 9,600 species of birds exist today. The prehistoric human colonization of Pacific islands (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia) resulted in the loss of as many as 2,000 species of birds, especially flightless rails, but also petrels, ibises, herons, ducks and geese, hawks and eagles, megapodes, sandpipers, gulls, pigeons and doves, parrots, owls, and passerines. The world avifauna would be about 20% richer today had islands of the Pacific remained unoccupied by humans.
Most of the extinct land birds were omnivores, frugivores, granivores, or nectarivores; indigenous plants might have depended on those birds for pollination or seed dispersal. Many species of Pacific island trees and shrubs seem to have no natural means of intra- or interisland dispersal today. Because island biotas are so degraded (i.e., so many populations and species already are extinct), endangered-species programs on islands face an extraordinary challenge to maintain conditions that might permit the long-term survival of the remaining species.
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