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Most Australians today know the hot, rocky island of Nauru as a Pacific country to which Australia sends asylum seekers who have come by boat. Far fewer recall proposals 50 years ago to resettle the population of Nauru on an island off the Queensland coast. Extensive and lucrative phosphate mining on Nauru by Australia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand throughout the 20^th century devastated much of the 21 square kilometre island, and scientists believed it would be rendered uninhabitable by the mid-1990s.

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