Paradise for Sale

McDaniel, Carl N.; Gowdy, John M. (2000-01-28). Paradise for Sale. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21864-2.

• Has attachment: File:RPN8PG2V.pdf

Abstract: 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.

Extra details:

DOI: 10.1353/MAN.2001.0067
MAG: 1989784836
CorpusID: 144006204
OpenAlex: W1989784836