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PacificIslands / Kiribati

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Economy of Kiribati

Kiribati is one of the poorest countries in the world. Since the turn of the century, Phosphates had been profitably exported from Banaba Island, but this was stopped in 1979. The Economy now depends on foreign assistance and tourism, for axample on fishing licenses to finance their imports and private income.

Kiribati has to import nearly all of its essential foodstuffs and manufactured article. Some fishing fleets from South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the United States pay a licensing fee in order to work in the island's territorial waters. Annually, these licenses produce over 20 million US Dollar. Kiribati is a really small island, which however, it loses untold millions of income per year through illegal,unlicensed fishing in their own economy zone.

Tourism in Kiribati is relatively small, but it is an important domestic sector. The island has between 3000 an 4000 visitors per year, which provide about 5 to 10 million US Dollar in revenue. A lot of the islanders have changed their activities from fishing to the growing of food crops like bananas, breadfruit and papaya. One of the export products with the highest demand is the coconut product copra, which accounts for about two-thirds of the export revenue. But there are also other export products, for example special sea products like shark fins and seaweeds. Kiribati's principal trading partner is Australia.

Kiribati has a lot of other difficult problems, which are very hard to deal with. The transportation and communication with other islands with other languages are a really big challenge for the Kiribatis. They also have problems with the airlines. The normal airlines cannot fly onto the island, because it is not big enough. Also telecommunications are a big problem. It is too expensive for the people and also the service is not very good. They have no broadband internet either.

Caroline Roberts

Environmental problems

One of the most important problems is the global warming and the rise of sea levels. Nobody could live there anymore, if the sea level rose by only 60 cm, because Kiribati is a low-lying state of numerous atolls. It could be that the rising of the sea even destroys the lagoon marine ecosystem, so fresh water might be mixed with salt water. Kiribati is sensitive to the dangers of pollution and radiations from weapon tests and nuclear waste dump. Because of the radiation, the wildlife in these areas are the most threatened in the world. On top of that, agricultural chemicals have polluted coastal waters.

The fauna and flora in the South Pacific has many differences from that elsewhere in the world. There are 2000 species in the South Pacific spread over 33 million square kilometres.

The forest and the agricultural areas are being destroyed because of the variations of the sea level. Besides, there is a big danger, because of earthquakes and volcanic activities.

The environment has also been affected by metals and chemicals from mining activities.

Marissa Gieling & Jana Lesmann

History of Kiribati

First the line of islands was inhabited by Micronesians Later on invaders from Tonga and Fiji brought Polynesian and Melanesian cultural aspects to the area of Kiribati. That was between 3000 BC to 1300 AD.

In the late 18th and early 19th century British and American ships discovered Kiribati. Gilbert Islands was the main island chain and named by a Russian admiral, Adam von Krusenstern, and a French captain Louis Duperrey in 1820 because of the British captain Thomas Gilbert, who crossed the archipelago in 1788.

In the early 19th century many merchants, whalers and slave traders visited or even invaded those islands and introduced diseases and weapons.

The first settlers from Britain came in 1837. 55 years later the islands became British together with Ellice Islands and so they belonged to the crown colony.

Tarawa Atoll (capital island of Kiribati) and other islands were occupied by Japan during World War II.

One of the most horrible battles of the U.S. Marine Corps took place in Tarawa.

Some of the Kiribati islands were used by the USA and GB for nuclear testing. The testing sites for the new H – Bomb took place in the 1960s on Kiribati.

Gilbert Islands got independent on 12 July 1979 and because of that they changed the name of the islands into “Kiribati” (Kee-ree-bus).

Clara & Evelyn

What the people live on and a few facts:

In Kiribati there live 99 % people from Micronesia and 1 % from Europe.

The population is about 107.820 people on the whole island. On Kiribati, the most people are rather young, which that statistic shows and makes clear:

0-14 years: 38.2% 15-64 years: 58.4% 65 years and over: 3.4%

The average age on Kiribati is about 20 years.

Most people live in single-story houses. The rural population of Kiribati lives in villages dominated by Western-style churches and large open-sided thatched meetinghouses. Houses of Western-style construction are seen on outer islands and are common on Tarawa.

They usually live from the produce of their own food, farming and from fishing. But the ground isn't very rich und efficient, so the inhabitants found this way to live with not so much food as in Europe. In the north-west of Kiribati they grow rice; in the west, they often eat Taroc (vegetable) which they cook or fry and in the east, the breadfruit is very popular. The rest of the food they need is imported, but the persons don't have a lot of money and only 7000 inhabitants have a proper job with constant earnings, with which they could pay the extra provision. Thirty percent are out-of-work, which is a high number. To make a few 'australian dollars', they dry some pieces of a coconut and then they sell it. With this pieces you can make coconut-oil! Another source of food Kiribatis is pork and chicken.

Catharina

HOMEWORK:

Vocabulary list 
                English:                      German:

          (to) comprise                    etw. beinhalten; bestehen aus
          the blur                         die Unklarheit; die Unschärfe
          coral reef                       Karallenriff
          coincidentally                   zufälligerweise
          state-of-the-art                 hypermodern
          the uniqueness                   die Eindeutigkeit
          indigenous                       bodenständig; eingeboren
          merchants                        Kaufleute; Händler
          profitably                       nützlich; rentabe