Gilbert and Ellice Islands around $250 million for revenue they had not received and for environmental destruction caused by phosphate mining practices similar to those on Nauru. The British authorities had relocated most of the population to Rabi Island, Fiji after 1945, but by the 1970s many were returning to Banaba. The British rejected the Banaban independence proposal, and the island remained under the jurisdiction of Kiribati. The Gilbert and Ellice Islands used their own postage stamps from 1911. Gilbert and Ellice Islands The Gilbert and Ellice Islands were a British protectorate from 1892 and colony from 1916 until 1 January 1976, when the
Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean The Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean ( or "Îles Éparses de l'océan Indien") consist of four small coral islands, an atoll, and a reef in the Indian Ocean, and have constituted the 5th district of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (TAAF) since February 2007. They have never had a permanent population. Two of the islands—Juan de Nova and Europa—and the Bassas da India atoll lie in the Mozambique Channel west of Madagascar, while a third island, Tromelin, lies about east of Madagascar and the Glorioso Islands lies about northwest of Madagascar. Also