Mike McRae-Williams, an Australian environmental specialist with more than 30 years’ experience in the mining sector, was in 2008 contracted to travel to Banaba to assess the seriousness of the situation. Photograph: Janice CantieriĪnother impact of mining was the construction of dwellings using asbestos, which when inhaled can lead to lung cancer and mesothelioma, both fatal diseases. The old cantilever that used to load phosphate on to ships. I encourage them to have this conversation, to hold governments who contributed to the destruction of our land to account.” He adds: “As an activist, I teach the young generation to stand their ground and be brave. “Every Banaban in Fiji and our diaspora communities in Auckland desire to go back to Banaba and reconnect with our homeland but the devastation caused by mining means there’s no place for people to settle,” says Rae Bainteiti, a youth leader and the director of the Kiribati Aotearoa Diaspora Directorate. Most Banabans were forcibly relocated to the Fijian island of Rabi when mining restarted after a hiatus during the second world war. While Banaba is home to just 300 people, it has a diaspora of nearly 6,000. Now Banabans say the drought has solidified their resolve to seek compensation and find a long-term solution. The British government did eventually offer Banabans an ex-gratia payment of A$10m on behalf of the BPC partner governments on the condition they dropped all further legal action. In 1976 a group sued Britain for its role in the devastation: the court ruled that while the UK had a moral debt it had no legal obligation. There have been earlier attempts by Banabans to receive compensation for what was done to their land – resulting in some minor wins. It’s part of who we are, but I thought these problems would be solved by now – instead they get worse.”Īlofa says elders would like to see Australia and New Zealand fund a team of researchers to travel to Banaba to assess the damage and repair the caves. “We perform dances and tell stories of how our ancestors found the caves during a bad drought. When mining finally ended, 22m tonnes of land had been removed. “For many Banabans, te bangabanga now exists only in the stories and dances passed down through the generations,” says one elder, Pelenise Alofa, adding that historically, only women could enter the caves, which anchored women’s importance in the community. Banabans have historically been able to survive droughts due to the natural ability of the caves to capture and store water.īut according to elders, nearly all of the caves were destroyed and the few that remain have been contaminated. Perhaps most damaging is the impact the mining had on te bangabanga. “They came in, had a big party, made lots of money and left.”
“The devastation is absolutely a result of their activity,” says Katerina Teaiwa, a Banaban scholar, associate professor at the Australian National University and the author of Consuming Ocean Island: Stories of People and Phosphate from Banaba.
By the time BPC left, 22m tonnes of land had been removed. To achieve this the elders are writing to the Australian and New Zealand governments, asking for support for a monumental job of rebuilding or cleaning an underground network of sacred caves, known as te bangabanga.Īustralia and New Zealand contributed to the destruction of te bangabanga during the 20th century through phosphate mining, which was begun by the Australian prospector Albert Ellis in 1900.įor the next 80 years, the British Phosphate Commission, equally owned by Australia, New Zealand and the UK, mined Banaba so extensively that about 90% of the island’s surface was stripped bare. The sacred underground caves are known as te bangabanga.
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