Nauru's Fifth National Report to the CBD

This report fulfills Nauru's 5th reporting requirement to the Convention on Biological Diversity which is also Nauru's first national report to be submitted to the convention. In this regard, the report attempts to provide a comprehensive assessment of the status and trends of our island’s biodiversity and threats to its survival and viability, and it also provides an account of actions that have been implemented to protect and conserve Nauru's biodiversity. The impacts of hundred years of phosphate mining has brought almost total loss of native forests including flora and fauna that have once covered 80 percent of lands on the central plateau of our island. These were valuable natural assets for the traditional and cultural knowledge that our ancestors have developed and enabled them to thrive on the harsh realities of our island for more than two thousand years. The downturn of our country’s economy in recent decades explicitly demonstrates our dependence on our island’s limited natural resources, which resulted in our peoples reverting to inshore fishing, bird hunting, aquaculture and cultivation for food and livelihoods.