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Nauru is an island in the South Pacific off the coast of New Zealand that was once one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. Early in the 20th Century, it was discovered that Nauru had large reserves of phosphate, an inorganic chemical used for a variety of industrial applications, and landowners were able to negotiate lucrative contracts for mining rights. For several decades, phosphate mining brought remarkable wealth to the island, particularly after it won its independence in the 1960s, and for a time Nauru boasted the greatest per capita wealth in the world. But once the phosphate had been stripped clean from Nauru, there was nothing to take its place, and coupled with an ineffectual government and a reckless bank system that failed, the nation went from riches to poverty, and careless mining practices polluted the waters surrounding the island to the point that nearly three-quarters of the marine life has been killed off. Filmmaker Juliano Ribeiro Salgado presents a sobering look at the rise and fall of the island's economy and the effect on those left behind in the documentary Nauru, An Island Adrift, which was an official selection at the 2009 Hot Docs International Film Festival.