Environment - current issues: limited natural fresh water resources, roof storage tanks collect rainwater, but mostly dependent on a single, aging desalination plant; intensive phosphate mining during the past 90 years - mainly by a UK, Australia, and New Zealand consortium - has left the central 90% of Nauru a wasteland and threatens limited remaining land resources
Environment - international agreements: party to: Biodiversity, Climate Change, Desertification, Law of the Sea, Marine Dumping signed, but not ratified: none of the selected agreements
Geography - note: Nauru is one of the three great phosphate rock islands in the Pacific Ocean - the others are Banaba (Ocean Island) in Kiribati and Makatea in French Polynesia; only 53 km south of Equator
@Nauru:People
Population: 11,845 (July 2000 est.)
Age structure: 0-14 years: 40.99% (male 2,494; female 2,361) 15-64 years: 57.37% (male 3,383; female 3,413) 65 years and over: 1.64% (male 97; female 97) (2000 est.)
Population growth rate: 2.05% (2000 est.)
Birth rate: 27.86 births/1,000 population (2000 est.)
Death rate: 7.34 deaths/1,000 population (2000 est.)
Net migration rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2000 est.)