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Homes in Glenvill's new-build Melbourne development, YarraBend, will have rooftop solar and Tesla Powerwall battery storage as standard features. Is this the new normal for suburbs of the future?

When most Australians hear of Nauru they tend to think of immigration detention, or perhaps of the environmentally ruinous legacy of the island nation’s ill-fated phosphate mining boom.

Nauru’s troubled history has seen it fall from being one of the world’s richest nations, on a per capita basis, to a society plagued by financial mismanagement and corruption. Yet despite its tragic back story, this tiny country of just over 10,000 citizens may well be poised for a comeback.

During a recent visit to research possible sustainable development pathways, I became cautiously optimistic about the country’s trajectory. On July 9, Nauru held an election which delivered some old and new faces to its 19-member parliament, including re-elected president Baron Waqa and leading Nauruan entrepreneur Sean Oppenheimer. They now face the task of leading their battered nation’s recovery.

Environmental cleanup

Nauru’s unique geography has created threats and opportunities. Living on a raised coral atoll with a fairly high plateau, the island’s population is less vulnerable than those who live on low-lying coral atolls.

It is on this high plateau, known locally as “Topside”, where much of Nauru’s phosphate deposits formed, interspersed between calcium carbonate pinnacles.

Now, almost all of the available phosphate has been mined for use in fertiliser. The residual pinnacles have left a jagged landscape that cannot be used for agriculture or forestry.

A jagged legacy. US Department of Energy/Wikimedia Commons

Recovering from the mining boom and bust has been a slow process. In 1993, Nauru settled a landmark international legal case, in which Australia agreed to pay reparations for colonial-era mismanagement of the island’s assets. This provided substantial funds for environmental restoration through the Nauru Rehabilitation Corporation (NRC).

When the regional asylum processing centre on Nauru was reopened in 2012, it was suggested that immigration detainees might even help with the nearby Topside restoration work. This may currently seem implausible, but could be considered as a livelihood option for some who may be interested in ecological restoration skills development.

However, the only land that has thus far been rehabilitated is in an area known as “Pit 6”. Ironically, this is being developed as a local Nauruan correctional facility, with the prisoners possibly to assist with reclamation work. Thus far the NRC has not managed to achieve its reclamation objectives anywhere else.

New ideas

Despite the slow progress so far, some innovative ideas are now taking root, which could potentially offer economic and development boosts as well as helping to rehabilitate the environment.

One option is to mine the leftover limestone pinnacles, which contain several potentially useful minerals such as dolomite. The United Nations Development Program has championed these so-called “neglected development minerals” as a way of helping Pacific nations (and others) out of poverty.

Although these materials can be sourced more cheaply in China and elsewhere, Nauru could conceivably be branded as a “boutique” producer of tiles from these stones, potentially attracting consumers who are willing to pay an “origin premium” – much like Carrara marble or Vermont slate.

Sustainable growth

Ultimately, Nauru’s population is constrained by the island’s small size – just 21 square km. But there is still room to grow, as well as economic and environmental opportunities, particularly where essentials such as energy and water are concerned.

Nauru has just one brackish lake, called Buada Lagoon, and an underground lake called Moqua Well. But it has plenty of sunshine, which is being tapped for solar-powered water purification systems to deliver drinkable water.

The United Arab Emirates has also supported a pilot project to develop a solar farm on Topside. This could help wean Nauru from its reliance on diesel as a source of energy.

However, far greater investment from donors and the private sector would be required to scale up these efforts. This, in turn, could help other sectors to develop, including a modest boutique tourism sector related to the island’s location as an airline transit hub for the central Pacific.

A derelict phosphate plant. More sustainable industries are needed next time around. d-online/Flickr.com/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY Financial future

Of course, much of this depends on the international financial community maintaining its faith in Nauru after years of financial mismanagement. On this question, the signs are still mixed.

In April, Nauru was admitted to the International Monetary Fund – a mark of international confidence in its finances and a move that will ensure rigorous economic oversight. But within days of that decision Westpac severed its ties with the country, reportedly amid concerns over financial irregularity that it had been investigating over the preceding months.

In contrast, Bendigo Bank returned to Nauru in 2015 after a 15-year absence of any banking provisions in the country. The bank has registered more than 5,000 accounts since then.

Public finances are also being given some positive assurance through the recent establishment of an Intergenerational Trust Fund for the country. Seed funding has been provided by the Asian Development Bank, Australia and Taiwan. This fund has far more stringent safeguards and independent auditing requirements, in contrast to earlier sovereign wealth funds that became notorious for their mismanagement.

A critical next step will be to ensure that, this time around, unlike the previous boom, the country’s revenues from its relationship with Australia, and from its natural capital, are converted into lasting economic capital.

As the country gets ready to review its National Sustainable Development Strategy in 2017, these efforts will garner further attention. While there is no room to be sanguine about the development challenges facing Nauru, there is certainly ample reason for hope.

Nauruans are amazingly resilient people who have survived several brushes with oblivion during their history. Every year on October 26, Nauru celebrates Angam Day, which commemorates the two occasions on which the population has bounced back from near-extinction to reach 1,500, which is considered to be the threshold for their long-term survival.

With careful environmental and economic planning, Nauru has the potential to celebrate many more Angam Days to come.

Saleem will be online for an Author Q&A between 4 and 5pm on Friday, July 15, 2016. Post any questions you have in the comments below.

Professor Saleem H. Ali receives funding from from a wide variety of public and private organizations. However, this article's content has no conflict of interest with any of the funding sources that support his research.

Habitat destruction has reduced the variety of plants and animals to the point that ecological systems could become unable to function properly, with risks for agriculture and human health, say scientists

The variety of animals and plants has fallen to dangerous levels across more than half of the world’s landmass due to humanity destroying habitats to use as farmland, scientists have estimated.

The unchecked loss of biodiversity is akin to playing ecological roulette and will set back efforts to bring people out of poverty in the long term, they warned.

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Though it does not actually say so, the report of the Committee on Climate Change (Report, 12 July) is a salutary reminder that a capitalist economy based on infinite economic growth, as expressed in terms of consumption-led GDP, is unsustainable and, if allowed to continue in its present form, will ultimately devastate the entire planet. Moreover, unless we cease using fossil fuels for energy and replace them with renewables at the earliest possible opportunity, the voluntary agreement reached at last year’s COP 21 climate summit to limit increases in global temperatures to less than 2C will be little more than hot air.

For an energy union like the GMB with thousands of members in the gas industry, the priority must be to establish a viable, UK-based, publicly owned renewable energy industry, thus enabling a just transition for those whose jobs will cease to exist in the coming decades. For this to happen, the vested interests of the privately owned energy monopolies have to be challenged, a point eloquently made by climate activist Naomi Klein at a packed meeting during COP 21 in Paris, organised by the Trade Unions for Energy Democracy network, which GMB supports.

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The government has axed the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) in a major departmental shake-up.

Improved materials would encourage recycling and prevent single-use containers from entering the oceans and breaking into small pieces

Plastics should be better designed to encourage recycling and prevent wasteful single-use containers finding their way into our oceans, where they break up into small pieces and are swallowed by marine animals, scientists said on Thursday.

This could be as effective as a ban on microbeads, proposed by green campaigners as a way of dealing with the rising levels of microplastic waste - tiny pieces of near-indestructible plastic materials - that are harming marine life.

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The European Space Agency has signed a contract to build a prototype drill and chemistry lab that will be flown on a Russian mission to the Moon in 2021.

Richard and Cherry Kearton, working in the 1890s, were possibly the world’s first professional wildlife photographers. The brothers’ pioneering photos include the first shot of a bird’s nest with eggs and the first Masai lion hunt.

• These images are taken from a new book published by Uniformbooks about their lives and work
  

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A new meat-eating dinosaur has been discovered in Argentina that possessed stubby arms like Tyrannosaurus rex.

What does nature mean to each of us?  Why is nature so pure?  And how do we reconnect with the natural world in an age where our lives are connected to technology?  

Bloc will have to draw up new plan with higher cuts for remaining 27 states in order to meet its carbon reduction target, which could cost billions of euros

Brexit will force the European Union’s remaining 27 countries to spend billions of euros on cutting carbon emissions more deeply to compensate for the UK leaving, according to experts.

The UK will be included in a Brussels communique on 20 July, setting out individual targets for EU signatory states to meet a bloc goal of a 40% emissions cut by 2030, as pledged in Paris last year.

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Treaty under consideration by 14 countries would ban new coalmines and embraces 1.5C target set at Paris climate talks

The world’s first international treaty that bans or phases out fossil fuels is being considered by leaders of developing Pacific islands nations after a summit in the Solomon Islands this week.

The leaders of 14 countries agreed to consider a proposed Pacific climate treaty, which would bind signatories to targets for renewable energy and ban new or the expansion of coalmines, at the annual leaders’ summit of the Pacific Islands Development Forum (PIDF).

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Americans chuck out two tonnes of food a second – be it at the farm for being ‘ugly’ or at the table because we’re too finicky

Every second, an amount of food equal to the weight of a sedan car is thrown away in the US - about 60m tonnes a year. It starts at the farm. The potato that grew to the size of a brick. The watermelon with the brown slasher marks on the rind. The cauliflower stained yellow in the sun. The peach that lost its blush before harvest. Any of those minor imperfections - none of which affect taste or quality or shelf life - can doom a crop right there. If the grower decides the supermarkets - or ultimately the consumer - will reject it, those fruits and vegetables never make it off the farm.

Then there are the packing warehouses, where a specific count must be maintained for each plastic clamshell or box - and any strawberry or plum that does not make it is junked, if it can’t immediately be sold for juice or jam.

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Solar Juice launches new division, Solar Capital, as one-stop shop for PPAs and early project financing.

Protection for birds, wildlife and waterways should come top of the list when any new payments for farmers are considered, NGOs tell new government

New subsidies paid to farmers under a post-Brexit government must be linked closely to environmental responsibilities, a large group of political and civil society organisations has urged.

Protection for birds, wildlife, waterways and other natural goods should come top of the list when any new payments are considered, wrote 84 food, farming and conservation specialists in a letter to Oliver Letwin and Theresa May on Thursday.

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Pioneering study of four herring gulls nesting in St Ives, Cornwall, found they spent most of their time foraging for food outside of town

The summer holidays are nigh and with them, no doubt, will come stories of seagulls on the rampage, stealing ice cream and chips and launching attacks on people and pets.

But a ground-breaking study that tracked the movement of herring gulls nesting in the Cornish resort of St Ives suggested they spent little time scavenging for goodies or scraps on the streets.

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South Australia pleads with state's most efficient gas generator to switch back on. But what was promised in return? Or was the generator just happy to help?

Regulator proposes new rules to force network operators to consider new technologies - presumably battery storage and local renewable energy - as an alternative to replacing new poles and wires.

Sandy, Bedfordshire What language did its tentacles speak? They appeared to be directionless conductors, randomly sampling the air

At nightfall, garden snails began to come out of the woodpile. I found one spiralling up a twig, stretching out its wet elephant skin. Another swung its body to the side, as if it was having a touch of slug envy, and was trying to dislodge its bulky encumbrance of a shell. One was sliding up the patio window and I went indoors to view it from beneath.

Pressed smooth against the glass, the muscles of its body (technically, its foot) rippled as waves might lap over a shallow, sandy beach, each wave a pulse of movement. Any slight change in direction caused the twisting part of the foot to crease, creating a filmy cellophane effect. What language did its tentacles speak? They appeared to be directionless conductors, randomly sampling the air, out of synch with each other, having no bearing on the animal’s purposeful course.

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Fancy a flight in a solar-powered electric passenger plane? According to the two adventurers behind the remarkable Solar Impulse plane completing a unique and fuel-free flight around the globe, that could be a reality within the next decade.