Editing Famine (section)

===Oceania===
[[Easter Island]] was hit by a great famine between the 15th and 18th centuries. Hunger and subsequent cannibalism was caused by overpopulation and depletion of natural resources as a result of deforestation, partly because work on megalithic monuments required a lot of wood.<ref>Bo Rothstein (2005). ''Social traps and the problem of trust''. Cambridge University Press. p. 20. {{ISBN|0-521-84829-6}}</ref>

There are other documented episodes of famine in various islands of Polynesia, such as occurred in [[Kau, Hawaii]] in 1868.<ref>Patrick Vinton Kirch (1989). ''The Evolution of the Polynesian Chiefdoms''. Cambridge University Press. p.</ref>

According to Daniel Lord Smail, {{"'}}Famine [[Human cannibalism|cannibalism]]' was until recently a regular feature of life in the islands of the [[Milne Bay Province|Massim]] near [[New Guinea]] and of some other societies of Southeast Asia and the Pacific."<ref>Andrew Shryock, Daniel Lord Smail (2011). ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=mombkmEiZg0C Deep History: The Architecture of Past and Present]''. University of California Press. p. 139. {{ISBN|0-520-27028-2}}. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164807/https://books.google.com/books?id=mombkmEiZg0C |date=26 March 2023 }}</ref>

When Russian explorer [[Otto von Kotzebue]] visited the [[Marshall Islands]] in Micronesia in 1817, he noted that Marshallese families practiced [[infanticide]] after the birth of a third child as a form of [[Human population planning|population planning]] due to frequent famines.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hezel |first=Francis X. |date=1983 |title=The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-colonial Days, 1521–1885 |series=Pacific Islands Monograph Series |location=Honolulu |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |pages=92–94 |isbn=9780824816438}}</ref>