#banaba

The ancient sacred caves were destroyed. The island's only source of fresh water was irreversibly polluted and left it unusable to this day. The interior of Banaba became one great hollow of uneven rock, so full of dips and pillars that it is now almost completely impassable on foot. It was left a barren land.

Banaba is not the only Pacific island devastated by phosphate mining; most notably, its neighbour Nauru had 80% of its surface stripped away. But nowhere has been exploited to quite the same extent as Banaba.

There were further indignities and horrors inflicted on the Banaban people, including indescribable atrocities carried out by Japanese occupiers during WWII, and tbe Britain-led forceful relocation of Banabans to Rabi Island in Fiji. Many still live there today. Others have migrated away.

[Image: Banaban girls performing a traditional dance on Rabi Island.]

The traumatic experiences of Banabans, the mass murders and the separation from their ancestral land have all caused significant cultural loss. This includes the loss of the Banaban language.

Approximately three hundred Banabans have returned to their home island, surviving due to supplies shipped in every few months. The only freshwater source remains unusable and severe droughts strike Banaba every three to four years. Although a desalination plant exists there, the vulnerability of the island became all too clear in 2021 when the plant broke down in the middle of a drought. It took three months for repair equipment to arrive. During that time the residents had no fresh water. Their only food was fish because all of their crops had died. They survived by sucking the liquid from fish eyeballs.

And an Australian mining company wants to do it all again.

Part of the reason that people returned to Banaba, despite the difficulties of life there, was to protect it from further mining. But in August last year, the Australian mining company Centrex announced a plan to restart phosphate mining on Banaba. The plan has been paused due to protests from the Banaban people, but it could be restarted again at any time.

We cannot leave it here. If you want to do one small thing to help, you can sign this petition from Banaban community leaders to stop the proposed new phosphate mine. But more than that, Banabans have been campaigning for Australia and Aotearoa to fund ecological restoration projects, especially for the sacred caves that were once the island's source of fresh water. As Katerina Teiawa says:

"We need to move away from this same continuous narrative of ‘the poor Banaban people, who have no water, help them’ and move towards an approach that is actually finding a solution.