Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme

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Phoenix Islands intended for relocation, as well as Enderbury

According to the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme ( German : Settlement Program for the Phoenix Islands ) of 1938, residents of the overpopulated southern Gilbert Islands should move to three uninhabited atolls of the Phoenix Islands group (since 1979 part of the state of Kiribati ), namely Manra (then Sydney Island ), Nikumaroro ( Gardner Island ) and Orona ( Hull Island ).

The islands sending settlers were Nonouti , Beru , Nikunau , Onotoa , Tamana and Arorae . The project was carried out by the then Land Commissioner for the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony , Henry Evans Maude .

The plans devised by British colonialists at the time to be able to cope with the overpopulation on some of the affected islands through resettlement mostly failed because the destinations had no or insufficiently suitable drinking water sources and were therefore always dependent on supplies from third parties. The long distance to the mother islands and the beginning of the Second World War made this almost impossible. In the case of the Phoenix Islands, there was also the fact that the water extracted from the soil had too high a salt content for some of the plants that are important for nutrition; after 1945 they suffered from several dry seasons, which impaired the usual water extraction in open reservoirs due to precipitation.

After initial success, all resettled people and their descendants left the three Phoenix Islands affected by 1963 and were mainly settled in the Solomon Islands . As a result, the Phoenix Islands were uninhabited again, and today there are a few families living in Canton . This settlement program was the last attempt to expand the British colonial empire in the 20th century, but it failed.

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