Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme

After the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme ( German: repatriation program for the Phoenix Islands) from 1938 should residents of the overcrowded southern Gilbert Islands on three uninhabited atolls of the group of the Phoenix Islands (since 1979 the State Kiribati belonging ), namely MANRA (then Sydney Iceland ), Nikumaroro ( Gardner Iceland ) and Orona (Hull Iceland ), to be resettled.

Settlers sending islands were Nonouti, Beru, Nikunau, Onotoa, Tamana and Arorae. The project was carried out by the then Commissioner of Agriculture issues the colony of the Gilbert and Elliceinseln, Henry Evans Maude.

The then devised by British colonialists plans of overpopulation on some affected islands to be Lord through resettlement, failed mostly because the destinations have no or only insufficient suitable drinking water sources, and thus were always dependent on supplies from third parties. The remoteness from mother Islands and the beginning of the Second World War made ​​this virtually impossible. In the Phoenix Islands was that the water extracted from their soil had a high salt content of some of the nutritionally important plants; after 1945 they suffered several droughts that affected the usual water extraction in open reservoirs by precipitation.

After initial success left to 1963, all displaced persons and their descendants the three affected Phoenix Islands and were located mainly in the Solomon Islands. The Phoenix Islands are uninhabited since then. This settlement program was the last attempt of the expansion of the British Empire in the 20th century, but this failed.