The story of the displacement of the Banaban people and the dispossession of Banaba in the name of extractive industry carries important lessons for climate justice movements and Indigenous resistance.

From the early 1900s to the end of the 1970s, the British Phosphate Commission – jointly owned by the British, Australian and New Zealand governments – mined 90% of the Banaba’s surface.

This extractive practice left behind barren and uninhabitable land, resulting in the forced resettlement of Banabans to Rabi island in Fiji in 1945.

To this day, Banabans on Rabi Island face discrimination as a partially self-governing entity falling between the cracks of Fiji and Kiribati. For the few hundred Banabans that have remained on their home island, lack of access to clean water and food imports create persistent challenges.

Banaba is an island nation currently within the political boundaries of Kiribati in the northern Pacific. In 1945, the British Phosphate Commission relocated Banabans to Rabi Island in Fiji. Rabi has functioned as a semi-autonomous jurisdiction and secondary home for Banabans since. 

You’ll notice the Native and Indigenous place names on the map of the region. As shared by the mapmaker, David Garcia:

“Mapping is not only about representation but also about contestation. These works are aimed at supporting campaigns regarding raising awareness about extractivism and colonialism in the Pacific, particularly towards human rights and environmental justice in Banaba and Rabi.

Far from an objective representation, these maps are necessarily politicised images of the locations and landscape in the storytelling regarding Banaba’s and Rabi’s geography and history. After all, mapping is political because space, knowledge, and power are intertwined. 

The politicisation of mapping and honesty about it can bring useful conversations for change.”