The grim history of Nauru Island, a small speck in the Pacific
Ocean halfway between Hawaii and Australia, represents a larger
story of environmental degradation and economic dysfunction. For
more than 2,000 years traditional Nauruans, isolated from the rest
of the world, lived in social and ecological stability. But in 1900
the discovery of phosphate, an absolute requirement for
agriculture, catapulted Nauru into the world market. Colonial
imperialists who occupied Nauru and mined it for its lucrative
phosphate resources devastated the island, which forever changed
its native people. In 1968 Nauruans regained rule of their island
and immediately faced a conundrum: to pursue a sustainable future
that would protect their truly valuable natural resources--the
biological and physical integrity of their island--or to mine and
sell the remaining forty-year supply of phosphate and in the
process make most of their home useless. They did the latter.
In a captivating and moving style, the authors describe how the
island became one of the richest nations in the world and how its
citizens acquired all the ills of modern life: obesity, diabetes,
heart disease, hypertension. At the same time, Nauru became 80
percent mined-out ruins that contain severely impoverished
biological communities of little value in supporting human
habitation.
This sad tale highlights the dire consequences of a free-market
economy, a system in direct conflict with sustaining the
environment. In presenting evidence for the current mass
extinction, the authors argue that we cannot expect to preserve
biodiversity or support sustainable habitation, because our
economic operating principles are incompatible with these
activities.
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