Australian mining company puts Banaba exploration plan on hold amid islanders’ concerns their phosphate-rich homeland may again be exploited
For some Banabans who trace their family, their history, and their home to the tiny Pacific island, the prospect of phosphate mining being restarted is the re-opening of a wound never healed, “a betrayal”.
“We don’t want mining there,” Toanuea Taratai, chairman of Tabwewa village, told the Guardian this week. “Even though we might be far away, our heart and soul is in Banaba.”
