Island life: will it sink beneath the waves with environmental change?

Photo by Yassin Hameed. Courtesy Portrait Gallery, Maldives

The sea is the Maldives’ greatest asset. Accounting for 99 percent of the nation’s territory, its deep turquoise waters and crystal clear lagoons draw big spenders from all over the world to its high-class resorts – spenders who keep its economy afloat. But it also presents Maldivians with a terrible irony: unless global warming is checked, the sea that provides such riches could also spell the end of this tiny nation.

At the World Summit on Sustainable Development that took place in Johannesburg last September, Maldivian President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom warned, as he has constantly for nearly two decades, that his nation of tiny coral islands could be lost beneath the waves unless global warming is tackled. The battle has been ongoing since 1987 when Gayoom told the UN General Assembly that a rise in sea level would submerge virtually all the islands. “A mere one-meter rise would mean the death of a nation,” he said, warning that even a temporary storm surge would be catastrophic and possibly fatal, forcing Maldivians to be relocated elsewhere.

As temperatures rise, the effects on the Maldives would include coastal erosion, increasing salinity of fresh water sources, altered tidal ranges and patterns, and perhaps most importantly, the gradual destruction of the coral reefs that constitute both the islands themselves and their breakwaters against the deep ocean that surrounds them.

Making international noise
Gayoom’s tireless campaigning for environmental issues has won him the nickname “Godfather of Environmental Awareness” and the respect of people around the globe. He points to the devastating effects that the rising sea levels caused by global pollution are having, not only upon small island states but also upon countries like the Netherlands, China, Egypt, Germany and the United States.

He has also served the world at large by raising awareness of the gravity of the issue of global warming and greenhouse emissions, one that poses undeniable danger to the planet as a whole. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in its Third Assessment Report, estimates a projected sea level rise of 0.88 m to 0.9 m for 1990 to 2100.

“There are clear indications that in the Maldives the sea level has been rising three to four millimeters per year, which is in accordance with the IPCC projection,” says Mohamed Ali, Director of Environmental Research at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Housing and Environment. “What happens in the next 30 years we don't know, but at least from the little we have record of we know the sea level is rising and doing so quite steadily.”

The Maldives instigated the Kyoto Protocol and were the first signatory to the Treaty. “Even before the Kyoto Conference, the Maldives worked very aggressively to convince the world that there should be a reduction of greenhouse emissions of at least 20 percent by the year 2005,” Ali says. “We have failed at that, but our work resulted in the Kyoto Protocol in which states agreed to reduce their emissions to a certain extent.” Although the Maldives contributes minimally to the global greenhouse gas emissions (0.001 percent), it is among the most susceptible of all nations to the impact of climate change.

The human costs
Ali explains that the country's economic survival is closely linked to the environment. Since the tourism industry relies heavily on the marine ecosystem, it is also under threat from climate change. “An increase in temperature can very easily bring the reef growth and ecosystems to an alarming state,” he says. “The corals have a very grim possibility of survival given the predicted rises in temperature.”

He points out that fisheries too are likely to suffer. Tuna, the main species fished, is a migratory species. “A change in temperatures can drive the tuna stock to more favorable climes, which could mean a decline in the fisheries industry as the fishermen lose their fishing grounds,” he says. As the tuna fishery is based on the old-fashioned pole-and-line method using bait, any change in the availability of bait fish caused by damage to the reefs would also affect the industry adversely.

Despite Gayoom’s efforts, larger nations often refuse to take the issue – and the Maldives’ plight – seriously. Around the world, people including US scholars and Saudi Arabian and Australian officials have suggested that the entire population of the Maldives simply move elsewhere.

On their own terms and on a much smaller scale, however, the government has come up with a similar plan. A project to build a new island, sitting higher above sea level, was recently completed. Hulhumale’, created entirely through land reclamation next to the capital island of Male’, could potentially become host to a large part of the population of outlying islands if the sea does rise as expected. The capital itself is relatively protected by what is nicknamed “the Great Wall of Male,” a massive breakwater designed to lessen the effect of surges and storms.

Development has taken its toll on the islands’ natural defenses: Male’s seawall was needed because the natural breakwater of the reef had been filled in for living space. Other islands have extended their livable land to the deepwater verge with land reclamation projects, making them more vulnerable to the sea. Harbors and breakwaters too have channeled sand away, and what remains is used for construction projects on the islands every day. The government is responding with duty incentives on alternative construction materials, so that islanders are no longer building the land and infrastructure they need with mined coral and sand – their only defense against the sea.

It seems that without international help, the Maldives are sunk. The problem’s dimensions are simply too large for one small nation to negotiate. “Why can’t we all get together on this,” appeals Ali. “Let’s put our minds together and realize that something radical, which matters to all of us, is happening.” For all of our sakes, one can only hope that the international community will start to listen to the Maldives’ appeals before it is too late.