A story that needs a title

The people of Nauru have used up their treasure. The party’s over. Is this a sign of the times?

You are wandering along the promenade at the sea front, ice cream in hand and seagulls circling above your head. What do you fear?

Exactly – a mess, a moment of ugh, and a need to clean up.

But that which is a mess to us might be a treasure to someone else. Come with me in your minds to a Pacific Island known as Nauru. Eight square kilometres, that’s all. A traditional dwelling place for a few fishing people… and a host of seabirds, whose mess falls on the island, and is baked in the sun, in piles which grow bigger and bigger and bigger until, over thousands of years, they are 100 -150 feet high. And now it is called guano – a source of rich phosphate fertiliser.

So it was that during the colonial period the Western world discovered the properties of guano. It could dramatically increase agricultural yields. And they descended on Nauru and other places like Peru where it is found, to mine it and ship it out. The central part of the island was excavated, its heart ripped out, as ship after ship came. After the First World War, the Australian, British and New Zealand government formed a ‘protectorate’ to ‘look after’ Nauru which was, of course, in reality a mining company. The world grew rich from the bird mess.

But the ancient supplies of guano were decreasing and the days of colonialism were drawing to an end so that in 1968 the island was returned to its people. And they began to sell their bird mess treasure for themselves.
Of course, the world by now was making fertiliser artificially and consuming massive energy in the process. The Haber process which makes nitrogen fertilisers currently accounts for 5% of world gas consumption. But the guano was still very lucrative and for a time the people of Nauru became rich, actually very rich. For a time they were the richest people on earth in terms of per capita income. They may have only had twelve miles of road around the island, but they had Maseratis parked outside their doors. And they grew well… fat, I mean seriously big people.

Then something happened – which should be a lesson to us all perhaps. The treasure ran out. There was no more guano. The mid part of the island had become a vast tract of barren land, scarred by all the mining activities and the local climate had changed as a result. The people were suddenly completely dependent on others. Claims were made to account for the environmental destruction against Britain and New Zealand. And Australia agreed to use the island as a place to store illegal immigrants, in other words a vast prison.That went well until a new more liberal Prime Minister was elected in Australia and the camp was closed. Just at this moment 90% of the people are unemployed. The economy is crippled and the most prevalent disease is diabetes induced by obesity.

So what do we say to the people of Nauru? Are they fools? Or have they been exploited and are they actually a sign, a warning, of the future of us all?

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