Brief History Of Nauru, The Pleasant Island Destroyed By Humans
Looking At The Story Of Nauru We Can Learn How Social And Economic Development Should Not Look Like
Some kilometres south of the equator — 42 to be exact — there is a small island, Nauru. Just over 20 square kilometres of land are surrounded by a rich and colourful coral reef. A place of immeasurable beauty and full of life. Green coconut palms mingle with the blue of the ocean and the pure white of the fine, clean sandy beaches. Seagulls stain the sky. A few thatched huts enrich the landscape. This is what you would have admired some decades ago. The first visitors called it the Pleasant Island. Unfortunately, this name does not belong anymore to this place. Nowadays, this tiny island off the Australian coast is known as the status-symbol of the extrativism and decay.
I first learned about Nauru on “This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate” by Naomi Klein. Her writings address the problems of unbridled capitalism and unsustainable development in a very timely and severe manner, and this book is no less. The famous writer and activist, a winner of numerous literary and social awards, recognised as one of the most influential figures in environmental activism, accurately deal with the history of the island — as the island itself, the examination of Nauru takes only a small part of the informative world build by the author about unsustainable development and socio-environmental issues.
Taking inspiration from that book, I, therefore, want to retrace and share the events that led a natural pearl of peace to become one of the richest countries in the world and then one of the poorest and most degraded. As many already stated, the case of Nauru is nothing less than a parable of modern development. Listening to it, perhaps, could save us from committing the same errors.
A growing global population, together with the improvement and enlargement of the middle classes, led to increasing demand for fresh fruit and vegetables. Also, the globalisation of markets and the technological advancement in agribusiness have hampered the request for food, and this brought about the need to nurture the lands to cope with increasing consumption. It just so happens that phosphorus (P) is an optimal fertilizer for plants that improve conditions and yield. However, although it is natural its artificial application has serious consequences in terms of environmental impacts as it disrupts phosphorus cycles, pollutes groundwater and erodes soil.
Amongst the many ways in which phosphorus makes itself available for use by humans, there is guano. Guano is the accumulated excrements of seabirds and bats. Its richness and composition of nutrients make it a perfect resource for farming. Apparently, this substance has been used by man for at least 1500 years to fertilise fields and crops.
So it comes that our little island, Nauru, was a pivotal meeting place for many migratory birds. Over thousands of years, the guano concentrated between the first corals’ reefs, creating solid and fertile layers that have led the island to glow with colour and life. Nauranian lived lightheartedly and in peace for many years, without worrying about field yields and the fertiliser needs of the so-called advanced countries. This coexistence with the island continued for many years, until a colonial official, under German control, discovered that the place was entirely made of high-quality phosphate lime. Nauru was a phosphorus mine. They were sitting on an ecological bomb ready to blow up, the fuse only needed to be lit by extractivism and industrial progress.
In few decades Nauru has been so hardly exploited by western multinationals — mostly German, British and Australian — that the green coconut palms and the sounds of life of the island are now a mere memory. The Pleasant Island is no more existing. Now Nauru is a big black hole ready to swallow what little remains before to implode, disappearing. Thousands of ships arrived with financial resources, to go back full of phosphorus. So, the Nauranian economy was dazzled and blinded by the brilliance and the immeasurable amount of money brought in by the large multinationals in the agricultural and chemical sector. In the years of massive extrativism, the core of the island become a heath of desolation in which only the bites of the excavators remain visible.
What led the island to decay is not the mere powerlessness to control their resources dictated by colonialism — by the way, Nauru gained independence in 1968 —, but rather the incapability to plan in the long term. Most of the inhabitants seemed to care more about having a shiny sport-car than a healthy and liveable place to live. In the years of extractivism in Nauru everything was free, school, transportation, no tax. But there was no other activity than those based on phosphorus extraction. Soon the island lost its golden goose. The close associates who used the resources of the Nauranians do not seem to have been particularly concerned. After all, business is business, and Nauru has always been seen as a fertiliser mine.
After some wrong tentatives to renew their economy and recover from the chasm, Nauru has quickly gone from being the nation with the highest per capita income to enter the list of the poorest country in the world. The environmental collapse brought with him social instability and uncertainty. Furthermore, the pressure from climate changes put even higher stress on the island. Droughts, pollution, acidification of oceans and rising sea levels. Nauru is the shining example of how a society can lose control and head for decadence if it fails to place environmental and social preservation above the ephemeral economic results and avarice.
Overexploitation and short-term blindness are major issues in sustainable development planning. We tend to weigh more in the short term than in the long run, and we behave as the planet’s resources are inexhaustible. As a result, the burden of climate collapse shifts to the future generation, that could not be able to recover the reins of unregulated development. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what happens in a hundred years, unless you are an inhabitant of Nauru.
You can read other detailed information on the history of Nauru on Britannica.
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