Nauru

Oceanía

114

Documented species

Parks and reserves

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Nauru is the smallest island republic in the world, a single raised atoll of twenty-one square kilometres with no rivers and no natural lakes apart from the brackish Buada lagoon. A narrow coastal strip of sand and coconut palms surrounds a central plateau that makes up four fifths of the island and that was dug out for a century to extract phosphate, leaving a landscape of bare limestone pinnacles. The reefs that ring the island drop away abruptly into deep water very close to shore, which brings oceanic fish in near the coast and draws seabirds. Rehabilitation projects are trying to return soil and vegetation to the interior plateau to make it habitable again.

The nature of Nauru

National animal: No official national animal; the frigatebird appears on the state coat of arms and is the bird bound up with local tradition

Did you know?

The phosphate that briefly made Nauru one of the richest countries on the planet per head of population was no ordinary mineral: it came from the accumulation over millennia of the droppings of seabirds that nested on the island, transformed by time and rain. Working that fossil guano stripped eighty per cent of the territory and left the interior of the island unusable, in one of the most extreme cases in the world of a country transformed by the biology of its birds.

Biodiversity profile

MicronesiaDato no disponible con precision en fuentes verificadas consultadas

Climate

•Tropical de selva lluviosa (Af), calido y humedo, isla unica de solo 21 km2

Main biomes

•Vegetacion muy degradada por la mineria historica de fosfatos
•Franja costera estrecha con vegetacion remanente
•Atolón elevado de fosfato
•Pináculo de caliza excavada
•Arrecife de talud pronunciado
•Laguna salobre interior
•Franja costera de cocoteros
•Océano abierto

Marine and coastal ecosystems

•Arrecife de coral perimetral estrecho alrededor de la isla

Flagship wildlife

•Carricero de Nauru (ave endemica)
•Aves marinas costeras
•Cangrejos terrestres e insectos nativos
•Fragata grande
•Tiñosa negra
•Rabijunco colirrojo
•Charrán blanco
•Currucón de Nauru
•Tortuga verde
•Cangrejo de los cocoteros
•Tiburón de arrecife
•Atún de aleta amarilla
•Pez napoleón

Notable endemic species

•Carricero de Nauru (Acrocephalus rehsei), unica especie de ave endemica confirmada
•Currucón de Nauru

Notable threatened species

•Muchas aves indigenas han desaparecido o se han vuelto raras por la destruccion de habitat asociada a la mineria de fosfatos

Notable protected areas

•Topside y laguna de Buada (priorizadas para proteccion de bosque remanente)
•Laguna de Buada
•Meseta de Topside
•Arrecife costero de Anibare
•Cuevas de Moqua
•Bahía de Anibare

Main conservation threats

•Degradacion severa del habitat por decadas de mineria de fosfatos a cielo abierto (cubre gran parte del interior de la isla)
•Ausencia de mamiferos terrestres nativos
•No hay especies vegetales endemicas registradas (60 especies nativas, ninguna endemica)
•Especies invasoras, incluida la hormiga de fuego

Notable natural phenomena

•Tercer pais mas pequeño del mundo y ejemplo extremo de degradacion ambiental insular por explotacion minera intensiva

Conservation

The rehabilitation of the mined plateau is the country's greatest environmental challenge and is advancing very slowly because of the cost of replacing soil. The Nauru reed warbler, a small bird that lives nowhere else in the world, has survived the destruction of the interior by taking refuge in the coastal vegetation.