The story of Nauru is the perfect example of unsustainable mining

Nauru is a small island, located in Central Pacific’s Micronesia, and its story is probably the best example of unsustainable mining practices.

The island was first sighted by an English vessel in 1798, the captain of which named it “Pleasant Island” because of its beautiful green scenery, mixed with white sand Pacific beaches.

Nauru is officially named the Republic of Nauru and is a sovereign country, measuring an area of 21 square kilometers (8 square miles), which makes it the world’s third smallest country behind Vatican City and Monaco.

However, despite its small size, the island country once held tremendous amounts of shallow phosphate deposits.

The existence of phosphate was first observed by geologist Albert Ellis in 1899, who in 1901 sailed on the site and found that roughly 80% of the entire island consisted of phosphate.

The island was back then ruled by Germany, which came to an agreement in 1905 with the Pacific Phosphate Company, a company of English concern, to start extracting the mineral.

Actual mining started a year later than that, and extracted phosphate was purposed to be used in far below market priced fertilizers, mainly in Australia and New Zealand, for the following decades.

Nauru’s ruling powers changed hands a couple of times during the influence of major events such as the two world wars, during which, its 1,200 natives were forced into labor camps by the Japanese troops, resulting in about half the island’s population perishing.

Despite everything, mining continued, and by the time Nauru gained independence in 1968 about 35 million metric tons of phosphate had left the island. To put this into perspective, if the minerals were to be loaded on dump trucks, and we lined them up, they would reach from New York to Los Angeles.

In addition to this, it is estimated that throughout its mining history, the island was responsible for the extraction of roughly 80 million metric tons, which would be enough to fill dump trucks from New York to Tokyo and back.

The Republic of Nauru was thriving, so that at some point it had the world’s second largest per capita GDP after Saudi Arabia, and the majority of its people were employed by the state.

However, questionable investments that were aiming to diversify the country’s wealth, along with fraudsters that took advantage of Nauruans brought the country to a tight economic position.

Nauru lost about 80% of its vegetation due to phosphate mining, which led to that land being practically uninhabitable and infertile.

Due to this, the country’s 11,000 residents now mostly rely on food and water imports, while a great part of it is canned. Namely, about 90% of the food consumed on the island is imported.

The small island nation is among the world’s most obese, with two thirds of men and three quarters of women being listed as obese, while the nation also features one of the world’s highest cigarette consumption rates.

Trying to get back on its feet, Nauru has tried different techniques, including selling its passports, questionable offshore banking practices, as well as investing in mining once again, reaching for its deeper secondary deposits.

Nauru recently returned to the spotlight as it aspires to be among the world’s first nations to start mining the ocean floors.