Buada Lagoon

Buada Lagoon sits in a gentle depression in Nauru's hilly interior, its surface mirror-still on most mornings and giving the surrounding casuarina trees a perfect reflection that doubles the sense of green in every direction, creating an optical illusion that makes the stand of trees appear twice as dense as they actually are when viewed from the water's edge on a calm day.

Despite the name, this is not a coastal lagoon but an endorheic lake with no surface outflow to the sea, its water kept slightly brackish by the porous limestone that underlies the island and allows a subtle mixing with tidally influenced groundwater that seeps inland from the surrounding ocean, a process that takes place over weeks and months rather than being immediately apparent to the casual observer.

The lagoon occupies roughly 3.8 hectares and reaches a maximum depth of about two metres after extended rainfall, though in dry spells the water level drops noticeably and the surrounding mudflats become exposed, creating a different but equally compelling landscape of cracked earth and wading birds that visit to feed in the shallows when the water recedes.

Traditional fish traps made of stone and woven pandanus have been maintained at the water's edge for centuries, and milkfish were historically raised here in a form of aquaculture that predates European contact by many generations, a system of controlled water management that represents one of the few examples of pre-colonial engineering in an island nation where most other forms of large-scale land modification were impossible due to the absence of suitable materials and labour.

The walk from the coastal road to the lagoon passes through a zone of secondary forest where coconut palms give way to denser growth, and the change in birdlife is immediate and noticeable, with palm warblers and golden white-eyes moving through the canopy while the occasional white tern can be seen soaring overhead, drawn to the lagoon by the insects that breed in the still water.

Sunset views from the eastern shore are a local secret, with the low hill of Command Ridge silhouetted against the sky and the lagoon surface turning copper and amber as the light fails, an effect aided by the mirror surface of the water that reflects the clouds and vegetation in equal measure, producing a palette of colours that shifts as the sun drops lower and the first bats emerge from their daytime roosts in the surrounding trees.

Unlike most Nauruan terrain which is denuded or scarred by phosphate mining, the area around Buada Lagoon remained productive enough that agriculture persisted here when it became impractical elsewhere on the island, making it both a biological and cultural refuge where the traditional relationship between Nauru's people and their landscape has survived in a way that has been lost from most of the rest of the island interior.

It is the only significant body of freshwater in Nauru, making it genuinely unique in a country where rivers and streams do not exist.

The surrounding forest provides habitat for bird species rarely seen elsewhere on the heavily mined island.

The traditional fish-trap system demonstrates a sustainable aquaculture practice with pre-colonial roots.