Nauru: Restoring the Land

Case Study

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Introduction

This case study is set in Nauru, a small coral island, less than 30 km in diameter, and less than 40 km from the equator. The study describes the impacts of phosphate mining and waste on the island and how waste could be used to restore the land.

Profile

Location

• South Pacific Ocean
• 4754 km from Sydney.

Area

• 2,200 hectares

Climate

• Tropical temperatures ranging from 22o - 35oC
• Nauru is in a dry zone and has frequent droughts

Population

• 10,600

Languages

• Nauruan (official), English, Yaren

Economy

• Phosphate mining
• Overseas investments

Land Ownership

• Land rights are held by individuals. Most people see land as belonging to the extended family.

History

Pre European:

Nauru was settled by migrations of Polynesians, Micronesians and Melanesians. It remained undisturbed for 3,000 years before the first Europeans visited and named it Pleasant Island.

Post European:

1798 - First recorded European sighting
1888 - Annexed by Germany
1900 - Phosphate discovered
1906 - Phosphate mining begins
1919 - Mandated to Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand
1939-45 - WW2 -Occupied by Japanese
1945 - Becomes a Trust Territory of Australia
1968 - Granted independence

Background

The Republic of Nauru is a tiny speck of land in the vast South Pacific Ocean. It is so small that it takes less than one hour to drive right around it. The airport runway cuts across three of the twenty kilometres of road. The only traffic lights on the island are used to stop the traffic and allow the plane to cross the road to the terminal! This is a favourite souvenir snapshot taken by visitors.

Large distances separate Nauru from other countries. Its nearest neighbours are the Kiribati islands 400 km across the ocean. Papua New Guinea and the Philippines are each 2000 km away. With little or no contact from the outside world for thousands of years, the people of Nauru developed a culture that is very much their own.

Land is very important to Nauruans and to own land, however small the piece may be, is to be Nauruan. Land is handed down from parents to children and while they own the rights to their land, it is also considered to belong to the whole family. When many people share a single piece of land it can make agreements over its use very difficult. However, the main advantage of this system is that everyone who shares in a piece of phosphate land receives payment from the mining company.

Most Nauruans live in extended family units. The average family has ten members and often three generations live together. Families usually live close to each other and members move freely between households. These strong family ties and love of their land keep Nauruans on Nauru. Unlike many other Pacific Island people, Nauruans do not move to other countries. They may go to school, take shopping trips and carry out business overseas, but Nauru is always "home."

The Nauruan way of life is best seen at the end of the day and into the night. During the heat of the day, people tend to work and stay indoors but at sunset, Nauruan families make their way down to the sea. They fish, swim, eat and relax in the beach shelters built in front of their homes. Night time brings many social activities and sometimes it seems as though Nauru never sleeps. Adults and children, dogs and pigs freely roam, gather and play. In the darkness just beyond the reef, the lights of the fishing boats speed by in pursuit of flying fish.

At night it is easy to forget that Nauru is one of the most environmentally damaged places on Earth. For in the darkness no-one can see the damage caused by one hundred years of phosphate mining.

Phosphate Mining on Nauru.

The island that is now Nauru began as a coral atoll. Over millions of years it rose and fell again into the sea. During this long time limestone pinnacles formed and phosphate rock gathered between them making a central plateau rising 60 metres above the coastline. Today, the plateau is called topside and the phosphate lying between the pinnacles is the focus of Nauru's phosphate industry.

Phosphate was discovered on Nauru at a time when farming was the fastest growing industry in new countries throughout the world. Phosphate mining began in 1906 and since that time the phosphate from Nauru has enriched the soil of Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand.

Australia bought most of Nauru's phosphate. It contributed to its wheat and meat industries. As a Nauruan once said many years ago "I always feel at home in Australia because it is covered in a thin layer of my homeland!" Although phosphate mining has given wealth to Nauru since its independence, it has also cost the country its environment and traditional way of life. The Nauru of today is very different from the Nauru that was first sighted by Europeans two hundred years ago.

Imagine an island surrounded by a coral reef with coconut palms fringing a sandy coastline. The lagoon is clear and filled with fish. The centre of the island is a plateau, rising high above the beach. Here the land is thickly covered in giant trees creating a forest filled with fruit and berries. Bird and insect sounds fill the air.

No wonder it was called Pleasant Island by the early explorers.

Before European contact, the Nauruan people had lived a sustainable lifestyle. The land and the sea together provided everything needed by the small island population of less than 2,000 people.

The Impacts of Phosphate Mining

Phosphate mining has had a huge impact on the people and the environment of Nauru.

Mining changed the whole Nauruan way of life. Cash replaced the old barter (trading) system. Stores full of imported goods slowly replaced the old crafts of weaving, shell work, carving and building. Many Nauruan customs were banned by the Europeans but by adapting some of their customs to western ideas, the Nauruan people managed to keep parts of their culture alive.

Along with the loss of many customs, Nauruans also lost knowledge of their environment. The old knowledge of plants and animals disappeared in the path of mining. Within fifty years more than half of topside had been mined and in this space of time Nauru changed from a productive forest land to a wasted landscape. Today, topside is almost completely mined. Tall limestone pinnacles rise from the deep pits created by phosphate mining.

With their traditional food source now gone, the people of Nauru depend almost entirely on imported food. Apart from locally caught fish, most food now arrives by sea every six weeks. All the other goods needed to make life comfortable in the twentieth century are also imported.

However these necessary imports cause another environmental problem for Nauru - waste.

Waste Issues on Nauru

Waste is a serious problem on Nauru. Nobody knows exactly how much waste is created as no thorough audits have been carried out. However, an estimate puts the amount at 500 kg per person per year. Food scraps, packaging, plastic, glass and metal containers, garden waste, disposable nappies, paints, machinery, chemicals, mining waste, sewage, car parts and oil form part of Nauru's daily waste stream.

There are three main organisations that collect waste on the island:

1. The Nauru Island Council (NIC) picks up rubbish from private Nauruan households every two weeks. Households can buy 240 litre plastic bins from the Council that are collected, taken to the landfill, emptied and returned. The NIC carries out about 900 collections each month. The Council also collects and empties 200 litre steel drums from public places.
2. The Nauru Government Works Department picks up waste from government offices and buildings, including government housing, schools and the hospital. Trucks collect 240 litre bins and steel drums twice a week. The bins and drums are transported to the landfill, emptied and returned.
3. The Nauru Phosphate Corporation collects waste from its own employees. The Corporation collects rubbish twice a day from their houses. Workers empty the 20 litre plastic bins into compacting trucks which take the waste to landfill. Due to the frequent service, litter is less of a problem in these areas.

Household Waste

Most Nauruan families generate more waste than the Nauru Island Council service collects. Once bins are full, householders have to find other ways to dispose of the extra waste. Many householders throw their rubbish straight into the environment - into the sea at low tide for the rising tide to take it away, along the roadside, or bury or burn it on their own land. The newly mined areas close to settlements are also used for dumping rubbish.

Households commonly burn their rubbish in large steel drums or on open fires. Kitchen and garden wastes are also burned on these fires. The smoke from burning household rubbish creates pollution which may harm human health.

There is no household sorting or recycling of waste in Nauru. There is a small aluminium can recycling scheme run by the Nauru Island Council. The NIC has collection bins in the community and separates cans from the waste at the landfill site. With a small hand-operated crusher and limited labour, the Council can only recover a fraction of the cans at the site.

Some ten million aluminium cans are imported into Nauru each year. If all of these cans were collected, crushed and transported to a recycling plant, they could return up to $200,000 per year.

PET bottles are also a problem on Nauru. The desalination plant that supplies Nauru with its drinking and household water fills approximately 20,000 PET bottles each month. Almost as many again are filled with local soft drink. These plastic containers are collected for recycling. A few are reused for water or locally-sold iced coffee but over 90% become waste.

The present landfill site is on topside. The waste is dumped between the pinnacles. It is usually burned first, then pushed into the pinnacles. Occasionally the landfill area is bulldozed and covered with a thin layer of soil. Other materials such as metals are pushed further into the pinnacles. Oil and other liquid wastes are also dumped and burned at the site.

Impacts of Waste

Nauru is so small, that the impacts of waste are easily seen. Apart from littering the natural and built environment, the major impact of waste is on water. It is feared that the leachate from landfill is already polluting the ground water, Buada lagoon and other fresh water on the island. As all water eventually finds its way to the sea, the lagoon and reef are also at risk.

Rubbish carelessly dumped into the sea also affects the environment. The coral reef is damaged from the effects of sewage. Old clothing too, is dumped in the sea. It smothers the coral and the tiny organisms die.

Long Term Solutions

Over the past few years a number of programs have been working towards solving Nauru's waste problems.

Nauru has been organising Clean Up the World Campaigns since 1993. Each year the Nauru Island Council coordinates the island-wide Clean Up. Church groups, schools and community groups turn out to pick up rubbish, which is then collected and taken to landfill. Prizes are given to the schools which collect the most waste and poster competitions are also held.

Recently, the community met with Clean Up the World to discuss the campaign and other waste issues on Nauru. A new environment group, formed as a result of this meeting, will work with the government to improve waste management.

Waste management plays a major part in Nauru's long term project to rehabilitate the mined out areas of topside. To rehabilitate is to fix up the land so it can be used again. This important project will use Nauru's waste to help repair and restore the land.

New Land from Old

Almost every Nauruan believes that one day Nauru will be productive and beautiful again. It is a vision that the people have believed in since mining began. The dream came closer when Nauru received money from the Australia government to help repair the damage caused by phosphate mining. The money will be used to rehabilitate about 1,500 hectares of mined land.

A joint study, undertaken by the Nauruan and Australian governments, shows how the land can be restored and made useful again. The results are contained in reports filled with information, ideas and action plans.

These plans include;

• Cutting some of the pinnacles level with the ground and crushing the rock to make a good base for topsoil.
• Collecting and shredding harmless metal and plastic waste and using this as a foundation for new land.
• Using the soil that was stockpiled when land was cleared for mining. There is enough to cover 500 hectares with a layer deep enough to support forest.
• Making new soil by collecting and composting all organic waste - garden (green) waste and food waste, paper, waste from food processing, animal manure, sewage and even disposable nappies. If all the green waste in Nauru was collected and processed this could create between 2,000 and 10,000 tonnes of compost each year. (These amounts depend on the future size of the population.)
• Regenerating local plants and trees. There is already a nursery growing seedlings for this purpose.

Once the land is restored it will be used for housing, community services, recreation, agriculture, education and small industries. The government and the community see this as a great chance to create a new Nauru.

The new Nauru will be designed to protect the environment and provide jobs in environmentally friendly industries such as:

• Fishing sustainably for local income.
• Replanting coconut plantations for oil, copra, food, craft and building materials.
• Growing a range of organic fruit and vegetables for local use.
• Developing tourism that will showcase the land rehabilitation project and promote historic sites such as the Japanese war relics.
• Creating special areas of biodiversity to educate Nauruans about their natural environment.
• Developing solar and wind power to replace oil fired systems.
• Creating projects that catch and use water wisely.

The new industries will combine traditional knowledge with science and technology and common sense. In this way Nauru should be able to have an economy and protect the environment at the same time. Nauru would become a sustainable society.

As Bernard Dowiyogo said when he was President in 1994,

"Development should be aimed at living our own preferred ways of life in a clean and sustainable environment."

Although the rehabilitation of Nauru will take many years to complete, when it is finally achieved, Nauru will again be the Pleasant Island.

Linked information

Adapted from Nauru's plenary address to the Barbados Global Conference of Small Island Developing States. April 1994.

Nauru will be rebuilt in three steps - the physical, the biological and the cultural. Each step will be interconnected with rehabilitation and sustainable development.

The physical step will deal with land and water systems. The coral pinnacles will be cut down and sawn and polished to make beautiful materials for homes and buildings. The pinnacles will also be crushed to make land fill. The land will be gently shaped and basins and reservoirs made to store precious rainwater. The freshwater beneath the ground will be tapped for sustainable use. The topsoil we have stored will be spread for forests and fields for the benefit of all Nauruans.

The biological step will deal with the fields and forests and the coral reef that surrounds us and protects us from the open ocean. We will create special areas of biodiversity around the island which will gradually become part of the rainforest of tomorrow. Horticultural stations will be based at each of these special places where seedlings will be nursed into trees and trees into forests. Papaya and pandanus, beach almond and banana, coconut, orchids, vines and the special tomano tree with its richly grained hardwood - will all flourish again. Our rainforest will live again, and with it, the many birds and animals. The coral reef that is the cousin of the forest - will be made healthy and will live again.

The cultural step will unite our land and culture once again. As all island people know, land and culture are joined and when one is changed so is the other. Our original culture, tied to the land and sea is largely gone, destroyed along with the rainforest and the reef. The rehabilitation of the land will restore and shape the new Nauruan culture.

Nauruans will do the work themselves - designing, reshaping, polishing, building, planting and recreating. This is our opportunity to create an appropriate culture for the future. The development of our people who will build the foundation of the new culture is Nauru's most important task.

2. Estimates of waste stream on Nauru

Organic (use for rehabilitation)
	per person kg/year	total tonnes/year
food wastes	35	525
paper	40	600
cardboard	50	750
plastics	50	750
textiles	25	375
rubber	10	150
leather	0	0
green waste	200	3000
Inorganic (potentially recyclable).
glass	25	375
steel cans	10	150
aluminium	5	75
other metal	25	375
dirt,ash,other	10	150
TOTALS	500	7,500

Based on a future population of 15,000 over the 50 year rehabilitation period.