Nauru's Richness and Debt

By atm.admin - Posted on February 4th, 2010

February 4, 2010

Letter to the Editor of Manila Bulletin

Nauru’s Richness and Debt

This is a reaction to Manila Bulletin’s published article entitled “National Day on Nauru” dated January 30, 2010. The article has stated that phosphate mining has made Nauru ‘one of the richest countries in the world in per capita income’. This article has caught the attention of our network called Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), which has been studying the long-term impacts of mining as it relates to sustainable development.

Although Nauru has been identified as one of the richest countries in the world in per capita income because of phosphate mining, the country is now saddled with a large foreign debt, and the trust fund built on phosphate mining royalties is diminishing rapidly because its government squandered much of this wealth through financial mismanagement according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) report in 2007.

The reality is, Nauru’s once-abundant supplies of phosphate are almost entirely exhausted, and the mining industry has left behind severe environmental problems. It is also worth to note, that the Nauru’s long-term economic future would have to depend on finding alternative sources of income as recommended by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Report in 2008.

Nauru is like the Philippines, which was blessed with mineral resources viewed by Government as the nation’s economic driver that is hoped to lead the country to sustainable development. The Philippines should learn from Nauru’s experience – a country highly depended on its non-renewable resource with poor fiscal management (reflective of the high dependency on foreign loans/grants and existing high debt) is a clear direction to a far-fetched sustainable development.

ATM is an advocacy group and people’s movement composed of more than eighty (80) organizations from mining-affected communities and civil society organizations nationwide. It is convened by HARIBON, Legal Rights and Natural Resources Center – Friends of the Earth Philippines (LRC/FOEI) and PhilDHRRA. (30)

-- JAYBEE GARGANERA

National Coordinator

Alyansa Tigil Mina,

nc@alyansatigilmina.net

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

National Day of Nauru

January 30, 2010, 8:43pm

Nauru celebrates its National Day today. Nauru is an island located in the West Pacific Ocean, just south of the equator. The Nauruans are of mixed Polynesian, Micronesian, and Melanesian races. About four-fifths of the people were Christians. Nauruan and English are the main languages.

In 1947, Nauru became a United Nations trust territory, administered by Australia. The country’s Local Government and Legislative Council were formed in 1957 and 1965, respectively, and in 1968, the Nauruans gained their complete independence. Nauru is the world ‘s smallest independent republic.

Nauru’s economy is centered on phosphate mining. Phosphate exports have provided Nauru with high per capita revenues among Third World countries. Approximately 2 million metric tons of phosphates were exported annually to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, South Korea, and Japan, primarily for use in the manufacture of fertilizer. The Nauruans enjoy huge royalties from the mixed phosphate resource. It has made Nauru one of the richest countries in the world in per capita income.

Commercial and agricultural exchanges have been active between the Philippines and Nauru. The linguistic, religious, and ethnic affinities between our two people are responsible for the close bilateral relations.

We congratulate the people and government of Nauru led by H.E., President Marcus Stephen, on the occasion of their National Day.

Source: http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/241086/national-day-nauru

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COMMENT RULES:

Hi everyone,

I'm the national coordinator of Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), the owner of this site.

We will always respect views and opinions posted on this site, as much as we encourage open discussion and intelligent debate on the issue of mining. ATM has its stand on this issue very clearly, and we welcome the comments from those who do not agree with us.

However, we have observed that in the past few days, this forum has gone way beyond acceptable behavior of netiquette.

I will request and strongly encourage all posters to at least follow the following rules:

1. Be civil. Basic courtesy and privacy norms should be practised by posters in this forum. Make your mom at least proud by showing you still remember to be polite, even if you're not required to say "po" or "opo" in every post you make. We wouldn't mind that either, if you do so. Then again, I am assuming here that you're already an adult.

2. Personal attacks will not be tolerated. This also applies to flaming. Just in case you don't know what flaming is, its deliberately insulting or personally ranting against a poster (or a thread) simply because you are losing the arguments.

3. Avoid being anonymous. Since you have enough time to post long comments, you would at least have a few seconds to type even an alias. You also help people conclude that you are not a paid hack from a PR firm by Intex (or any other mining company)

4. Do not shout in the forums. Do not use ALL CAPS in your posts. A single exclamation point should also suffice.

We will observe the forum in the next few days. Should these rules be disregarded, we will transform this into a minimally-moderated forum. We hope we will avoid the situation that we will decide to make this a closely and strictly moderated forum. We value everyone's insights so much.

We'll check up again on this new rules after a short while. Of course, we expect the Intex ECC to be revoked in a few days. In this case, I suspect that the "excitement" in this thread would have died down.

Jaybee Garganera
National Coordinator
ATM