The island nation of Naura is Paradise well and truly lost:
It sits, a tiny eight-square-mile speck, way out in the vast and lonely reaches of the Pacific, halfway between Hawaii and Australia. In 1798 a passing British captain, the first westerner to see it, dubbed it Pleasant Island. That old name sounds cruelly ironic now. Seen from the air, Nauru resembles an enormous moth-eaten fedora: a ghastly grey mound of rock surrounded by a narrow green brim of vegetation. On the ground, this unlovely impression is confirmed. Strip-mining has turned Nauru into a barren, jagged wasteland. The once-dense tropical vegetation has been cleared. The exposed rock reflects the heat of the equatorial sun and drives away rain.Unlike many small, remote Pacific islands, Nauru possesses a valuable commodity, phosphate, a sought-after fertiliser ingredient. A high-grade supply was discovered in 1900. For a brief, heady moment in the 1970s, Nauruans were, astonishingly, among the richest people on earth. Now they are poverty-stricken, unhealthy and look set to be clobbered by international trade sanctions. The story of Nauru’s descent from prosperity to penury is one of the most cautionary tales of modern development.
A taste of how the resource curse has hit the phosphorous-rich island:
Today, out of a total population of 12,000, some 4,000 are foreigners. Australians serve as managers, doctors and engineers, Chinese run the restaurants and shops, while other Pacific islanders do the dirty work in the mines. That was all very well for much of the 20th century, when the money was flowing in and Nauruans saw no need to work for a living. But nowadays few Nauruans are capable of doing these jobs. Only a third of children go to secondary school.
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There are no taxes of any kind in Nauru. The government employs 95% of those Nauruans who work. Schooling and medical care are free. If Nauruans need treatment that neither of the two hospitals on the island can provide, the government pays to fly them to Australia instead—though Ausaid, an Australian aid agency, recently warned that Melbourne hospitals would turn away Nauruan patients unless the country’s medical bills are settled. Students who want to go to university are also sent to Australia on the government’s tab. Electricity, telephones and housing are all subsidised.With their government salaries and low living costs, Nauruans have enjoyed a way of life that, to other Pacific islanders, might seem enviable. Office hours are flexible. A much-used golf course fills some of the last green spaces on the island. A government station broadcasts three television channels for the islanders’ enjoyment, though technicians often seem to lose interest in the programmes halfway through.
Yet the most popular pastime seems to be idly driving the 20-minute circuit around the island, drinking imported Victoria Bitter beer and tossing the empty cans out of the window.
Mere excerpts cannot do the article justice. Read the whole thing.