Carmen Cardinali Paoa Carmen Cardinali Paoa Carmen Cardinali Paoa (born 21 June 1944) is a Chilean professor. She served as the Governor of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) in the government of president Sebastián Piñera, between 2010 and 2014. A native of the island, Cardinali hasworked as a professor in Santiago and also in Easter Island's tourism industry. Cardinali's predecessor, former Governor Pedro Edmunds Paoa, resigned in early August 2010 following the occupation of six buildings by protesters who demanded the return of land to the descendents of the island's indigenous Polynesian inhabitants. Lawyer Jorge Miranda was appointed as interim Governor until a replacement
Easter Island other artifacts. However, land clearing for cultivation and the introduction of the Polynesian rat led to gradual deforestation. By the time of European arrival in 1722, the island's population was estimated to be 2,000–3,000. European diseases, Peruvian slave raiding expeditions in the 1860s, and emigration to other islands, e.g. Tahiti, further depleted the population, reducing it to a low of 111 native inhabitants in 1877. Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. In 1966, the Rapa Nui were granted Chilean citizenship. In 2007 the island gained the constitutional status of "special territory." Administratively, it belongs to the Valparaíso Region, comprising a