Nauru

Yaren — the de facto capital of Nauru (a micro-nation of 21km² — the third-smallest country in the world, 4,000km northeast of Australia, population 10,000, an independent republic since 1968 — a raised coral island made almost entirely of phosphate rock, with a history defined by the exploitation and depletion of that phosphate and the resulting cycle of extreme wealth and poverty) with the Nauru Phosphate Corporation ruins and the Parliament House.

💡 Nauru had the highest per-capita income in the world in the early 1980s — the phosphate royalties produced a GDP per capita higher than Saudi Arabia, which the Nauru government spent on a national airline, luxury cars (with no road longer than 30km), overseas real estate investments and a welfare state with no taxes. When the phosphate ran out in the 1990s, the investments had mostly failed, the national airline collapsed, and Nauru became dependent on Australian aid in exchange for hosting Australian offshore asylum seeker processing.

The phosphate mining plateau (the interior of the island, stripped to bare pinnacles of coral limestone (the “topside”) by 90 years of phosphate extraction — a desolate moonscape of jagged white limestone pillars, the most dramatic environmental degradation on any inhabited island, covering 80% of the land surface — with the rusting mining equipment, the broken conveyor belts and the ghost infrastructure of the Nauru Phosphate Corporation still present across the plateau).

💡 The Nauru phosphate deposits (accumulated over millions of years from bird guano deposited on the raised coral island, creating a layer of calcium phosphate up to 15m thick covering 80% of the island) were first mined commercially in 1906 under German colonial rule. By the time phosphate production peaked in the 1970s, the annual production was 2 million tonnes; by 2016 the economically accessible deposits were largely exhausted. Rehabilitation of the stripped interior has barely begun.

Buada Lagoon (the only inland body of water on Nauru — a brackish freshwater lake in the island’s interior, surrounded by pandanus and banana trees, the most peaceful and green spot on the island, a roosting area for the endemic Nauru reed warbler (Acrocephalus rehsei — found only on Nauru, one of the rarest endemic birds in the Pacific) and a traditional freshwater fishing area for local families) and the traditional community meeting house.

💡 The Nauru reed warbler (Acrocephalus rehsei — endemic to Nauru, found only in the remaining pandanus and vegetation around Buada Lagoon and the coastal fringe, population estimated at fewer than 10,000 individuals and declining with vegetation loss) is the most visible endemic bird in Nauru and the primary wildlife attraction on the island.

A complete circuit walk of the coast road (the road circles the entire island in 19km — the most accessible circumnavigation of any independent nation on earth, taking 4–5 hours on foot — passing the phosphate loading cantilevers, the Japanese WWII command post ruins, the Anibare Bay beach (the only sandy beach on Nauru, with sea turtles nesting at night), the Chinese workers’ quarters and the characteristic Nauruan residential areas with their Australian-donated houses and Japanese cars).

💡 Nauru’s Japanese WWII occupation (August 1942 – September 1945 — Japanese forces occupied Nauru and deported 1,200 Nauruans to Truk as forced labourers, of whom 463 died; the Japanese also executed all remaining Nauruan leaders) has left numerous concrete bunkers, gun emplacements and the command post near Yaren still visible and accessible, the most complete surviving WWII Japanese fortification on a small Pacific island.

Anibare Bay (the finest and only sandy beach on Nauru — a broad crescent on the eastern coast, the leeward side of the island, with a fringing reef for snorkelling, the most intact coral in Nauru’s EEZ accessible from shore, sea turtle nesting November–January, and the Menen Hotel beach — the only beach resort facility on the island) and traditional Nauruan fishing (hand-line fishing for tuna from the reef edge, the primary protein source for Nauruan families).

💡 Nauru has the world’s highest rate of type 2 diabetes (approximately 40% of the adult population) and the world’s highest obesity rate — the direct result of the phosphate boom years (1970–1990) when imported processed food replaced traditional fishing and agriculture, and the subsequent decline in the economy that maintained the food culture without the income. Nauruan traditional food (freshwater eels from Buada Lagoon, coconut crab, fresh tuna) is still available but represents a small part of the current diet.

The Regional Processing Centre (Nauru’s offshore immigration processing facility for Australian asylum seekers — opened 2001, closed 2008, reopened 2012, providing substantial income for the Nauruan government in exchange for hosting asylum seekers transferred from Australian waters — the most controversial aspect of Nauru’s contemporary identity, the source of the majority of the island’s current government revenue and the reason Nauru remains politically relevant in the Australian domestic immigration debate).

💡 Nauru’s Australian Processing Centre deal (the Australian government pays approximately AUD 400–500 million per year to Nauru for hosting the Regional Processing Centre — a sum equivalent to approximately AUD 40,000–50,000 per Nauruan resident per year, dwarfing the GDP of any other activity on the island — is the primary income source for the Nauruan government and has replaced phosphate as the basis of the economy since 2013.

A final morning in Nauru: the phosphate loading facility and the harbour (the only entry point for goods and the last remnant of the phosphate export infrastructure), the Nauru government building and a final coffee at the one cafe in Yaren before flying from Nauru (INU) via Brisbane or Tarawa (Kiribati).

💡 Nauru is listed by the International Monetary Fund as one of the least economically developed countries in the Pacific, yet its residents have free healthcare, free education and no income tax — subsidised entirely by the Australian Regional Processing Centre fees. The island has attempted to diversify its economy through online banking licenses (some controversial), a satellite internet company and deep-sea mining exploration of its EEZ.