From “Heaven” To “Hell”--A Study Of Colonialism’s Plunder Of Nauru’s Phosphate Resources And Ecological Disaster

With the rapid development of the global market economy,man and nature are gradually confronting each other and ecological disasters are gradually becoming the main form of disasters in today’s society.Nauru,a remote island in the Pacific Ocean,is unanimously recognized by scholars as a model for the emergence of economic and ecological catastrophes,the causes of which can be found in this history of Nauru’s colonization.The article is divided into four main chapters to discuss the plundering of Nauru’s phosphate mines and to analyze the long-term effects of the ensuing ecological catastrophe on Nauru’s indigenous population.The first chapter reviews the different historical stages of Nauru’s colonization and the specific process of phosphate mining by Western colonizers.Because of its remoteness and small size,Nauru remained relatively isolated for a long time,and indigenous development on the island remained at a primitive stage.The island’s peace was first shattered by German expansion,and in 1900,the discovery of high-quality phosphate on the island brought Nauru into the international arena.During the tri-colonial period between Australia,Britain and New Zealand,Nauru’s phosphate mines were heavily exploited,and in 1942,during the Japanese occupation,Nauru was drawn into the Second World War,with the wartime bombing of the island exacerbating the existential crisis of Nauru’s indigenous population.As ecological catastrophe is an important issue brought about by economic modernization,Chapters 2and 3 analyze in detail the extent of the destruction of Nauru’s islands by phosphate mining during the imperial colonial period within the framework of ecological economics theory,and describe the various manifestations of ecological catastrophe on the islands,both in terms of their own environment and in terms of the social development of the islanders.Finally,Chapter 4 describes Nauru’s struggle against colonialism,resource depletion,and economic collapse in the context of ecological catastrophe and its new developments,while showing that the colonial powers’ solution to Nauru’s sustainable development involves not only the restoration of the environment and ecology,but also the responsibility of each colonial power not only to provide funds,technology,and personnel,but also to reflect deeply on the long-term damage caused by colonialism to the island nation.The current state of ecological disaster caused by environmental destruction is already a hot issue nowadays,and the case of Nauru provides a more convincing reason for people to pay attention to the ecological balance issue.