Nauru: Environmental Apocalypse in the World’s Smallest Republic

this video is brought to you by squarespace from websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business check out squarespace through the link in the description below more on them in a bit on a map it's nothing more than a dot a tiny speck of land lost in the vast blue emptiness of the pacific yet nauru is more than just some isolated island since independence in 1968 it's been completely self-governing a recognized country in its own right covering a mere 21 square kilometers and home to fewer than 11 000 people it's the smallest republic in the entire world first cited by the europeans in the late 18th century nauru gained a reputation as a paradise nicknamed pleasant island it was famously hospitable depressed office workers daydream of a tropical island sadly a series of discoveries turned that dream into a living nightmare occupied by multiple colonial powers naoru wound up being strip mined for phosphate its lush ecosystem destroyed replaced by baron scrubland even after independence the destruction continued a process that made the local elites filthy rich even as it left their home a near uninhabitable ruin an epic tale of greed mismanagement and destructive short-term thinking this is the story of how nauru went from rags to riches to environmental apocalypse [Music] on paper the thing that's most fascinating about nauru is its diminutive size at a hair under 21 square kilometers there is no other republic on earth that's tinier the only smaller nations monaco and vatican city are monarchies in fact nauru is so small that it's almost impossible to get your head around one common method of doing so is to note that it's only a third the size of manhattan but a more illuminating description involves the ring road circling the island at a mere 40 kilometers per hour which roughly translates to loser speed in miles per hour you could cruise around the entire nation in about 30 minutes in other words it's the sort of place where even guys from liechtenstein would be all like damn this place is really small but while nauru's pixie-sized stature should be the most interesting thing about it the reality is far darker the ring road we just mentioned the one circling the island well that's pretty much the nation's only thoroughfare the one everyone lives around the one where all the buildings are and all an hour and life takes place that's because the interior of the island is a no-go zone a dead world of bone-white crags irritating dust and punishing heat luna's topside this desert wasn't always here at the dawn of the 20th century topside was a dense forest of wild almond and pandanus trees a place where colorful frigate birds mixed with turns in a cacophony of noise how this paradise was lost is the real most interesting thing about naoru and also the most tragic and it all begins with the arrival of europeans it was november 8 1798 when the british ship snow hunter first spotted the island prior to this point nauru had gone almost unnoticed by world history although polynesian and micronesian settlers had landed there around 1000 bc they'd since developed a relative isolation protected from the wider world by difficult currents that make approaching by canoe extremely difficult as such they developed a unique language and their own regimented culture life on nauru revolved around 12 clans each with its own chief while there was often tension it seems they were mostly forced to live in harmony with such limited resources and in such isolation any sustained violence could have led to mutual destruction as easily as the white house and the kremlin simultaneously pressing the big red button marked kaboom none of this changed that day in 1798 as the snow hunter passed by the island hundreds of curious now and paddled out in canoes to greet it while there was no direct contact between islanders and the british the ship's captain was so charmed by the display that he dubbed nauru pleasant island it would only be after everyone involved was long dead that this nickname came to be bitterly ironic after that first contact europeans slowly became a more familiar sight around naoru first it was whaling vessels which began landing on the island in search of water these in turn were followed by the beachcombers europeans on the run from australia's penal colonies or who deserted from a ship beachcombers hopped from island to islands living on beaches and keeping a low profile one of the first to wash up on nauru just happened to be the worst jon jones a violent sadist jones was notorious for ruling the island's beaches like a dollar store stalin murdering other beachcombers who opposed him still he tried to keep a good relationship with the naoruns helping them trade coconuts and water with the whalers in return he procured them tobacco alcohol and firearms it was this last item that would become jones's legacy on nauru long outlasting his eventual banishment from the island once guns and hard liquor had been introduced into the equation it was only a matter of time before the centuries-long peace between nauru's tribes broke down and when it did pleasant island would find itself engulfed in violence unlike anything it had ever seen [Music] in 1881 a lone white man pushed off from nauru's beaches in a canoe headed for a royal navy ship anchored near the shore known as william harris the man was a former convict who escaped norfolk island way back in 1842 eventually settling on nauru and marrying a local woman now though his one goal was to carry information to get the story of what it witnessed to that british ship so it wouldn't be lost the story of the naren civil war likely one of the deadliest per capita conflicts in history the narion civil war wiped out over a third of the island's population kicking off in 1878 it began when an argument at a wedding feast saw one participant grab his gun and start blasting killing the son of one of the twelve chiefs by this time nauru was awash with european weapons so when the tit for tat killing started it quickly spiraled out of control at the time william harris made contact with the british ship the island had degenerated into two opposing factions one headed by a local clan leader the other by a white man who declared himself king all the small arms and gardens had been destroyed dozens of the wild pigs used for food were killed in short this dot of land had become a brutal hell one harris after 50 years living there was now desperate to flee with harris gone it's unknown how the war's end game played out all we know is that by 1888 there was no sign of the white king we also know that despite the guns violence was dying down but this wasn't enough for the germans that same year the german empire annexed nauru into its martial islands protectorate the first thing the kaiser's troops did on landing was to place all 12 chiefs under house arrest and declare they'd kill them unless every single gun on the island was handed over in all 800 weapons were surrendered and with that the age of war inauru ended and the age of occupation began for the first few years nauru's experience of colonialism was relatively benign it was so remote and seemingly useless that the germans kept only the laziest eye on it that this state of affairs changed at all is thanks to albert fularelis a british subject born in australia ellis was a 30 year old guy working in sydney for the pacific islands company when he became weirdly obsessed by a company door stop propping open one of the doors in his office the heavy lump was supposedly a piece of petrified wood that someone had brought from naoru but being the sort of funtimes guy who knew his petrified wood from his regular door stops ellis was all like that thing nah bry that's something else and he started running some tests and this was the most lucrative decision of his life the doorstop was actually a giant lump of phosphate ore a fertilizer capable of producing gigantic harvests dashing to nauru ellis ran more tests soon discovering that the whole wilderness region known as topside was rich in phosphate neither the naurens nor the germans had realized it but they were sitting on a harvest worth crazy money just below their feet lay an ancient coral bed the gaps between its jagged peaks filled with phosphate phosphate that could be mined and sold at the small cost of destroying all the topsoil it was the beginning of the exploitation of nauru of an industrial operation that would both make its owners filthy rich and utterly annihilate the island's ecology now just before we get into the rest of today's video let me tell you a little bit about today's fantastic sponsor squarespace now a couple of simple things maybe number one you've got an idea for some website or business that you want to start well two the only way to figure out if 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integrations member areas the list just goes on like i say squarespace removes the excuses to your dreams so just go get started now also 24 7 customer support in case you get lost but you probably won't because it's all very easy to use head to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com forward slash geographics to save 10 percent of your first purchase of a website or a domain and now back to today's video [Music] in the end german involvement in nauru ended as suddenly as it had begun when world war one broke out in 1914 an australian force was sent to occupy the island and arrest the few german nationals living there come the end of the war no one was really in the mood to hand it back to berlin so in the early 1920s nauru was transformed into a mandated territory of the league of nations and placed under joint british new zealand and australian control by now the nauran population had been severely depleted although world war one had mostly passed them by the spanish flu had spread through their small community like wildfire killing over 500 people as the interwar period marched on this social devastation would be matched by that under the environment although technically a joint concern now it was in reality run as an australian colony one solely dedicated to extracting as much phosphate as possible by 1940 a huge swath of the land along the islands west and south had been strip mined the miracle fertilizer then sold on to australian british and new zealand farmers at favorable rates but what was a boon for these farmers was poison for nauru here's the thing about phosphate mining it doesn't just damage the land it completely uses it up rendering it unsuitable for anything else the tropical world of topside was being slowly replaced with the moonscape of jagged coral peaks and deep crevices one in which nothing could grow nothing could live and no stable structures could be built it was colonial exploitation at its worst profit focused and painfully short-sighted yet compared to what this small pacific island was about to endure it was practically civilized the arrival of the japanese empire was as miserable for nauru as it was for literally every single place the imperial army conquered across august the 2nd 1942 japanese planes and ships bombarded the island destroying mining equipment and leaving the population traumatized then one hundred soldiers landed under lieutenant nakayama hiromi beginning nauru's brutal and bloody occupation at the moment the japanese arrived there were around 1 800 naurens alongside some gilbertis and chinese workers and five australians the australians were first to be killed beheaded or bayoneted on a dark beach in march of 1943 after months of house arrest really though it was the nauruns who were the main target of nakayama hiromi's wrath of all the indignities suffered two atrocities of this period really stand out the first came on july the 7th 1943 that day soldiers rounded up 39 leprosy sufferers living on nauru and placed them on a boat telling them they were to be resettled on a nearby island the ship then towed that boat out to sea the moment nauru was out of sight it turned its guns on the boat destroying it and drowning all the passengers the youngest victim was 11 years old the second atrocity was even worse over the summer of 1943 1200 naurens were taken in two groups for slave labor one was sent to the island of truck and surrounding islets to grow food to support the imperial army there a combination of disease and ill treatment saw over a quarter of them die a staggering rate but still better than the fate suffered by the second group dispatched to another island the second group were given almost nothing to eat yet brutally punished if they stole food the result over half of them died of starvation or were executed all told between the two groups plus additional murders on narrow itself the japanese are thought to have exterminated over 25 percent of all narons it would likely have been more had the war not ended when it did on september 13th 1945 australia reoccupied naoru four months later on january 31 1946 their now and prisoners were returned from the two slave labor groups a date still celebrated on the island today in the aftermath the u.n effectively handed naoru back to the triple administration arrangement between australia new zealand and britain but this time things would be different rather than just let themselves be exploited again the now and survivors of world war ii were going to push for something they hadn't had in a long long time independence although it was a colony post-war nauru wasn't exactly the congo free state under leopold ii locals did receive profits from the phosphate mining albeit a minuscule percentage and they did have their own elected assembly the nauru local government council established in 1951 the council was more than just a rubber stamping body it was a place with real if limited powers and a great bully pulpit from where to spread ideas it would be from this council that hamada robert's political career was born an hour in chief derobot was a survivor of japanese forced labor he was also nauru's most charismatic son a politician able to articulate a clear vision a vision of naoru freed from australian rule like other great independence leaders of the age such as lee kuan yew and singapore daruba had studied in the country ruling his nation that meant he had a knack for communicating with the remote ruling class of being able to speak their language and drive a bargain and he had one hell of a hand to play by the mid-1960s a whole third of nauru had been strip mined leaving a coral and limestone wasteland that could never be inhabited again recognizing that this was slightly more despicable than they were comfortable being australia offered to resettle the nauruns on another island but de roberts said no and he kept pushing and pushing for full independence eventually he pushed hard enough that canberra had to agree in 1967 rights to the phosphate mines were transferred to the nauru people a few months later at 6 30 pm on january 31 1968 the australian british and new zealand flags were lowered for the final time that evening nauru officially became the smallest independent republic in the world at the moment the era of colonization ended there were 3 100 naurens living on the island with another three thousand chinese gilbert and elise islanders mostly working in mining phosphate revenues were so great that after expenditures the government could have given every hour and thirty thousand dollars a year a gift worth well over two hundred thousand dollars in today's money instead hamada robert used that wealth to power an era of such great excess that it would make richie rich look like ebenezer scrooge as president for all but two years from decolonization until 1989 derobot ramped up phosphate mining relying on the income it brought in to create a more sustainable economy by 1975 nauru was per capita the second richest nation on earth but the trouble with booms is that when you're in the midst of one it can be hard to imagine it ever ending hence the government giveaways like free healthcare free education freedom from taxation and near guaranteed employment hence also the absurd purchases like when the government bought its own fleet of aircraft or built a giant tower in the middle of melbourne these were the fat years years when residents would buy a pack of tobacco for fifty dollars and leave the change the years when money and goods were so easy to come by that traditional fishing methods were abandoned and the young dropped out of education the thing is these years could have lasted forever in 1975 alone the government made phosphate profits of 2.5 billion dollars in today's money invested wisely that could easily keep a population of 11 000 people in luxury for generations yet wise investments were never a part of the government's plan like their colonial overlords before them the post-independence government had discovered the joys of short-term thinking of playing while the sun was out never imagining that it might someday rain but storm clouds were already gathering by the late 1980s it was clear that phosphate was running out that unless the government changed course now or it would never survive the oncoming storm sadly the storm arrived far sooner than anyone could have predicted if you need an example of the sort of jaw-dropping things nauru's sovereign wealth fund considered wise investments look no further than leonardo a portrait of love a lavish stage musical detailing a fictional romance between leonardo da vinci and the mona lisa leonardo featured lyrics by a british one-hit wonder band and scenes like da vinci slapping his muse on the butt and sortily asking her for help with his research financed with nauru's phosphate money after the president's accountant played him a demo tape it was supposed to be a smash hit that would generate naouri money for decades to come instead well i mean you just heard the description right no one's bought a ticket to that a portrait of love was one of the worst bombs in the history of london theater sucking seven million dollars and the reputations have all involved into a black hole yet it was also a sign of the desperation gripping 1990s nauru as the decade dawned 80 of topside was mind dry phosphate reserves were nearly tapped out at this stage we need to be clear that this wasn't thanks to some inherent fecklessness of the narens plenty of the island's inhabitants saw this catastrophe coming they held protests demanded to curb wasteful government spending but did the local elites listen of course they didn't like pacific island versions of squid games vips they just kept demanding more and more sucking their island's resources dry the most justifiable of these was suing australia for mining related damage done in the colonial era the suit resulted in a 100 million payout but this was nothing against the nation's ballooning debts so the government turned to offshore banking throughout the 1990s nauru allowed 400 banks to set up offices in a low tax low regulation environment generating millions of dollars in fees every year but regulations were so minimal that the government didn't require either a physical presence on the islands or any record keeping the result was a banking system used primarily by drug cartels the russian mafia and even al qaeda in 1998 alone organized crime is estimated to have laundered 70 billion dollars through nauru's phony banks alongside this the state was also selling passports to be fair this is something multiple countries still do today but where nauru differed is that it sold diplomatic passports that historical diplomatic immunity baddie and lethal weapon 2 for enough money 1990s nauru would allow you to become that dude not good when your customers were russian gangsters and al god damn kaida these schemes only ended in 2002 when the u.s designated nauru a money-laundering state sanctions were slapped on the island rivaling in severity to those slapped on saddam's iraq by then though the bottom had already fallen out at the turn of the 21st century naoru effectively went bust all its assets were sold off at the same time the phosphate all more or less ran out the top side of memory one that still had two-thirds intact at independence was gone replaced by an unlivable hell with eighty percent of their territory now strip mines all now and said left was a narrow habitable band circling the desert a corridor of life between ocean and man-made desert speaking to the new york times now and pastor james angamer summed up the tragedy i wish we'd never discovered that phosphate i wish naoru could be like it was before when i was a boy it was so beautiful there were trees it was green everywhere and we could eat the fresh coconuts and breadfruit now i see what has happened here and i want to cry yet still the grim tale of naoru wasn't over there would be one more chapter one which would see the bankrupt nation forced to sink to heartbreaking depths [Music] in 2001 a norwegian freightership entered australian waters with an unexpected human cargo on board were 400 afghan refugees the vessel had saved from drowning with international law dictating that anyone rescued at sea be taken to the nearest port the norwegian ship was now headed for the australian territory of christmas island but docking would turn out to be harder than anticipated the australian government denied the refugees permission to disembark yet the norwegian captain also refused to take them elsewhere known as the tampa affair after the norwegian vessel the standoff threatened to become a full-blown diplomatic crisis until nauru quietly stepped in in exchange for hard currency the island would hold the unwanted refugees in an offshore detention center by this stage the economic conditions on nauru were utterly desperate the end of phosphate mining had seen unemployment skyrocket to 90 the school system had fallen apart as the decade wore on things would get so bad that nauru started offering diplomatic recognition for cash giving unrecognized states like south ossetia a veneer of legitimacy in return for millions of dollars housing australia's unwanted refugees were simply another route covering their debts but it would also be the most controversial initially running from 2001 to 2008 before being revived in 2012 australia's offshore detention system has received staggering amounts of criticisms for its human rights violations the psychological trauma specialist and recipient of the order of australia paul stevenson for example spent a couple of years working on naoru although he'd been present in the aftermath of the port arthur massacre and the 2004 indian ocean tsunami he later told the press in my entire career of 43 years i have never seen more atrocity than i have seen in the incarcerated situations of manus islands and naoru at its heart was a mixture of neglect and hopelessness that especially affected detained children a shocking series of times interviews in 2018 found 10 year olds in nauru's camp almost catatonic with despair and kids as young as 8 refusing food and talking about committing suicide yet with the center one of the few avenues of employment and income on naoru the government still can't afford to shut it down fees associated with offshore processing account for up to 25 of nauru's gdp while deals struck with the us and new zealand have seen all but 108 of the many hundreds held there resettled over the last few years and there are no plans to close the detention center as the former nauru and lawmaker matthew batsuur has pointed out our mainstay income is purely controlled by the foreign policy of another country so what other option do they have but to keep taking on australia's unwanted today nauru is a desperately poor desperately damaged nation barely able to function there is endemic unemployment rates of alcoholism and domestic violence are high as are levels of diabetes and heart disease and then there's the environmental catastrophe over 80 of the nation is now strip mined scrubland where nothing but brush grows and nothing can be built the groundwater has been contaminated leaving the entire nation reliant on a desalination plant that frequently breaks down dust kicked up by the last remnants of mining causes respiratory problems blanketing entire communities in fine irritating powder in short nauru is less a functioning state than it is a warning a warning of what can happen when we let greed run unchecked when we value the nice shiny trinkets in our home above the natural environment and that warning right now might be more relevant than ever there's currently a fierce debate in international forums about deep sea mining the act of scouring the seabed for polymetallic nodules rich in rare earth metals proponents say it's a less socially damaging alternative to traditional mining one will need to take advantage of as electric vehicles which rely on these metals to function proliferate opponents on the other hand point to the possible ecological damage the way deep sea mining is thought to reduce organisms in affected locations by up to a third initially scientists called for a moratorium until we figure out these impacts after all international law states no company could start deep sea mining without the backing of a nation-state then in 2021 nauru became that nation-state in partnership with canadian firm deep green the government pulled the trigger on a two-year countdown to finalize the rules or they'll just go ahead and mine regardless it's a risky gamble if deep sea mining goes well it might give naoru would desperately need a lifeliner route to a sustainable income that doesn't involve wacky musicals or shameful australian border policies on the other hand if things don't go well if it turns out the deepsea mining really is destructive to the ocean floor well it may soon turn out that phosphate mining wasn't the only environmental apocalypse in the history of naoru the island paradise that was destroyed by human greed so i really hope you found this video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below if you like this sort of topic by the way i've got another channel called into the shadows which i'll link to before it deals with all sorts of dark stuff like we dealt with in today's video like i say i will link to that channel below it's called into the shadows you can also search for it on youtube of course and thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Geographics

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Length: 26min 0sec (1560 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 11 2021