Nauru is known to be the smallest island nation on earth ,a floating driblet of rock one 10th the size of Washington, D.C. Forty years prior, it was probably the wealthiest country in the world because of its rich, profound phosphate mines not until their poor environmental resource management system bring them to their downfall.
1. What specific type of natural resource was found in the Nauru Island that play a significant contribution to the economy, how this natural resource formed in the island and what are the importance of the said resources in agriculture.
Phosphate has been mined on Nauru since 1907. For quite a long time it was Nauru's primary resource and sole export, this play a significant contribution to the overwhelming island's economy, its quality is ranked as the highest in the world. The phosphate industry and government services together provided almost all of the island’s salaried employment. Sailing to Nauru in 1901, Ellis found that 80 percent of the entire island, the raised central plateau Naurians call “Topside”, was rich in phosphate of lime. Nauru’s phosphate deposit is the result of thousands of years of bird droppings, also called guano. The importance of the said resources in agriculture which attracted the attention of the foreign companies is that it is an excellent fertilizer.
2. Identify and describe the Nauru island environmental changes cause by poor environmental resource management system.
The Nauru island experienced great environmental changes because of their poor environmental resource management system. In the process of mining phosphate to fertilize fields in faraway places, the country had rendered its own landscape infertile. While the mining business exploded, the land was systematically destroyed. Mining also affected marine life surrounding the island as silt and phosphate runoff contaminated the waters. These leads them to having almost all of their food being imported that even their fresh water is also being shifted. Nauru once, being rich in resources, now can’t even provide for food and water requirement of this generation, because of their mismanagement and inability to come out of the unrestrained consumption of resources.
3. In your opinion what is the best lesson learned of Naurian people in their previous natural resource management system.
In my opinion same us what I’ve heard in the videos presented to us, the best lesson learned of Naurian people is that they shouldn’t have demand and desire for more economic growth, more money, and more consumption without regarding the ecosystem balance. Greed, colonial mismanagement and incompetence will only lead us to downfall. Most of the time businesses don’t care enough about environmental preservation, it is always a secondary concern for them, they focus completely on the economic gains from businesses, which is a bad thing for we should ensure that we are not harming the environment, we should be planning on how to meet the requirement of current generation without affecting the ability of future generations to meet our own, not relaying on the notion “tomorrow will take care of itself”. Also conducting strategic environmental assessment and environmental impact assessment is one of the best lessons learned of Naurian people in their previous natural resource management system.