#banaba

[temptastarway]

banaba

[cybergoth-damsel]

"The Hachiro thinks it's everyone's favorite monster. It has a big head, a big body and a big ego. But deep down, it's really pretty lonely. Won't you love it?" -Monster Rancher 4

dude come on.

[delfindakila]

Banaba

Iginuhit ni ADRIAN PANADERO

[whenua-and-moana]

Banaba

How the West Made an Island Unhabitable (and Consumed its People's Bones)

Banaba, aka Ocean Island, is a small island in Micronesia. It's legally part of Kiribati [kih-rih-bas] but geographically, culturally, and politically very distinct. At three hundred kilometres from its nearest neighbour, Banaba is one of the most isolated places on earth.

It is also among one of the most ecologically devastated.

In the 1900's, a UK / Aotearoa / Australian owned mining company dug up and shipped away huge amounts of Banaba's phosphate-rich soil for use as fertilizer. They grew rich and created Aotearoa's massive agricultural industry from literal stolen land.

More than just the physical earth was taken. Phosphate mining stripped the layers where Banabans had buried their dead for thousands of years. The dust of their bones fed the lands of the West, creating rich green fields that Banabans would never see the profits of.

When I say 'huge amounts' of earth; 90% of the island's surface was stripped away.

[Left image: an aerial view of Banaba showing a roughly oval island with no vegetation in the centre. The outside is ringed by a thin strip of forest. Right image: a photo of the edge of a mining area. In the background is a forest, but then the ground drops off sharply into irregular rocky terrain.]

The ancient sacred caves were destroyed. The island's only source of fresh water was irreversibly polluted and left it unusable to this day. The interior of Banaba became one great hollow of uneven rock, so full of dips and pillars that it is now almost completely impassable on foot. It was left a barren land.

Banaba is not the only Pacific island devastated by phosphate mining; most notably, its neighbour Nauru had 80% of its surface stripped away. But nowhere has been exploited to quite the same extent as Banaba.

There were further indignities and horrors inflicted on the Banaban people, including indescribable atrocities carried out by Japanese occupiers during WWII, and tbe Britain-led forceful relocation of Banabans to Rabi Island in Fiji. Many still live there today. Others have migrated away.

[Image: Banaban girls performing a traditional dance on Rabi Island.]

The traumatic experiences of Banabans, the mass murders and the separation from their ancestral land have all caused significant cultural loss. This includes the loss of the Banaban language.

Approximately three hundred Banabans have returned to their home island, surviving due to supplies shipped in every few months. The only freshwater source remains unusable and severe droughts strike Banaba every three to four years. Although a desalination plant exists there, the vulnerability of the island became all too clear in 2021 when the plant broke down in the middle of a drought. It took three months for repair equipment to arrive. During that time the residents had no fresh water. Their only food was fish because all of their crops had died. They survived by sucking the liquid from fish eyeballs.

And an Australian mining company wants to do it all again.

Part of the reason that people returned to Banaba, despite the difficulties of life there, was to protect it from further mining. But in August last year, the Australian mining company Centrex announced a plan to restart phosphate mining on Banaba. The plan has been paused due to protests from the Banaban people, but it could be restarted again at any time.

We cannot leave it here. If you want to do one small thing to help, you can sign this petition from Banaban community leaders to stop the proposed new phosphate mine. But more than that, Banabans have been campaigning for Australia and Aotearoa to fund ecological restoration projects, especially for the sacred caves that were once the island's source of fresh water. As Katerina Teiawa says:

"We need to move away from this same continuous narrative of ‘the poor Banaban people, who have no water, help them’ and move towards an approach that is actually finding a solution.

This whole thing is a series of crises. We can’t just keep telling the story of devastation and vulnerability over and over again. Where does the crisis end, if not with justice?"

[questionsforpossums]

Hello once again frend!

Have sum fruit🍓🍓🍎🍎🥭🥭

Possum luvvv froot, Possum hopes u bringed banabas

[filipeanut]

Banaba flowers, and even products & artwork in and around my biking grounds in Manila.

I’m beginning to see more and more local products using Banaba (𝘓𝘢𝘨𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘰𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘢 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘰𝘴𝘢). It has long been a traditional medicinal source for various communities in the country. Banaba is native to Southeast Asia, and has been long known for its antidiabetic, anti-inflammatory, and antioxidant properties (DOST PCHRD*).

Maybe one day every home will have a Banaba tree, helping urban ecosystems thrive with life and biodiversity. What local and native trees grow in your neighborhood? How have some of them been utilized by your neighbors and Indigenous communities? These are our health heirlooms, passed down by generation, and germination.

Learn more about Banaba and more of our "forest friends" at the Haribon Foundation: https://haribon.org.ph/support-our-work/rainforestation/forest-friends-of-the-philippines/meet-banaba/

*Department of Science and Technology, Philippine Council for Health Research and Development

[elckip]

PLEASE ask me questions

I am so fucking bored oh lordy lord

[idkmybffcal]

Tw aba

I like caaaant handle work rn. I’m an instructional assistant working with autistic kids and I’m working with this one kid who keeps being violent to other kids and I have training and knowledge and personal lived experience all giving me good insight into how to support him but the other adults I work with incl the teacher literally know so little about autism it’s so fucking frustrating. His parents have him in aba and it’s clearly doing damage and I’m trying to talk to the teacher and she literally never has time and I’m not supposed to be the one talking to his family about everything even. I’m trying just to slow down, deescalate, introduce aac, etc. but working against so much bureaucratic bullshit and incompetent allistics w/ authority over me + home/therapy actively working against the stuff I’m trying to work on with him aaaaand I’m fucking exhausted. Just trying to mitigate as much harm as I can and wishing I had more control than I do and that people would take this kids needs seriously and respect his body and his space so that he could then have any idea of what it means to respect anyone else’s. Today he pulled some racist shit that probably traumatized this other little girl a bit. There’s clearly a lot of trauma and it’s so frustrating that that’s just seen as autism and that all these autism professionals literally just think that’s what autism is. Combo of trauma and white boy socialization. Other autistic girl in the class was able to empathize with the kid this kid was bullying right away, but this kid’s not being taught that it’s just like, wrong to hurt people. He’s being taught that he shouldn’t hurt people cause then he won’t get a cookie or won’t get time on the computer which is his special interest. So many levels of fucked up. So many levels. This would be so much easier if the other adults I was working with, especially the ones with more power than me, were at all competent about autism vs signs of acute distress and trauma