The Physical Destruction of Nauru: An Example of Weak Sustainability
This article discusses the concept of weak sustainability through the examination of the small Pacific island of Nauru, retracing its economic history dating back to German colonialism and the subsequent devastation that was caused due to the over mining of phosphate. The significance of Nauru, over other areas of resource exploitation, is it provides a succinct illustration of weak sustainability in practice, as well as the complexities of the arguments both for and against it. Gowdy and McDaniel refer to Harwick (1978) and Solo (1991), stating that the concept of weak sustainability “stipulates that an economy is sustainable if its capacity to generate income for future generations, a capacity embodied in its capital stock, is maintained.” In other words, what capital can be saved and invested to compensate the inhabitants for the over-exploitation of the land’s resources? Although the people of Nauru may be temporarily compensated economically, this achievement comes at the cost of a situation near total environmental devastation.
Although Gowdy and Harwick expose the long-term drawbacks of weak sustainability, the article fairly hypothesizes the positive effects that such an economy may have for the Nauru people. The short-term economic comforts of the Nauru people provide a foreshadowing for the future of our planet. The film Home and Our Daily Bead provide a fantastic pictorial representation of this devastation in order to accrue economic return and satiate the masses appetite for consumption and consumerism.
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| (Retrieved July 20, 2011 from http://geography.howstuffworks.com/oceania-and-australia/geography-of-nauru.htm) |
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| (Retrieved Jule 20, 2011 from http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/apr/26/nauru-united-nations-developed-world) |
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| (Retrieved July 20, 2011 from http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/nauru--the-little-island-that-cant/2007/12/29/1198778769277.html) |
The breath-taking images in the film Home definitely help to lessen the despair that one might feel after watching the movie and hearing about the time limit we have to change the way things are going. The film shows the interconnectedness not only of everything on the earth now, but how the water cycle is constantly renewed in such a way that all species now are drinking the same water as species in the past. Similar to the Nauru, who gave up their own resource-rich land, the movie Home states that half the world’s poor live in areas that are the most rich in resources. One of the key quotes in the film comes at the beginning and states that “our genius has always been to understand our weakness.”
The Home movie website is below:
Arthus-Bertrand, Y. (Director). (2009, June 5). Home. Retrieved from
Gowdy, J.M., & McDaniel, C.N. (1999). The Physical Destruction of Nauru: An example
of weak sustainability. Land Economics, 75(2), 333-338.
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