BLUEPEACE blog

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has recently projected in its latest report, the rise of the sea level worldwide by two feet by 2100 as a result of melting ice sheets and the expanding of the sea by warming seawater.

If the IPCC projection is accurate, the white beaches of the Maldives could start to dissolve just like ice sheets into the warming water of the Indian Ocean.

A Typical Low-Lying Atoll Island of Maldives

Mohamed Nasheed, who was recently sworn in as the country’s first democratically elected president told a British newspaper “We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere,” namely Sri Lanka, India and Australia, as possible spots for a refuge and said they have been receptive to the idea. He also said “It’s an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome”. “We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades,” he added.

President Nasheed plans to set aside some of the country’s $1 billion annual tourist revenues to acquire what could be described as a contingency country. President Nasheed intends to create a sovereign wealth fund to relocate the population, much like Arab states have done with oil revenues. “Kuwait might invest in companies–we will invest in land,” he said.

The Maldives lies in a strategic position astride and along major sea lanes in the middle of an old trade route in the Indian Ocean where US$200 billion of the world’s maritime passes through every year and possesses a unique island culture and customs. But the big question is whether the natives of these islands who have lived in harmony with the ocean for more than 2000 years could easily abandon their islands just like that and relocate the entire atoll nation to higher grounds elsewhere.

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Contingency adapted island with 3 meters elevation. As projected by IPCC the sea level will rise by 2 feet by 2100.

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As projected by IPCC the sea level will rise by 2 feet by 2100. An average Maldivian island is less than a meter above sea level.

Almost 80% of the islands of the Maldives are just 1 meter or less above sea level and the natives of these low-lying coral islands do not have much of a choice, except for the adaptation of their islands or out migration to higher grounds elsewhere. But the choice should be left to the individuals to make – whether to stay in adapted sinking islands or to migrate elsewhere.

Over the longer term, in order to accommodate the climate IDPs (internally displaced persons), at least seven adapted contingency islands need to be developed in seven different regions across the archipelago of the Maldives. In actual fact, all the resort islands in the Maldives could be adapted as water villages or boat houses, but developing all 200 inhabited islands as elevated adapted islands is a formidable task.

Of course, as a matter of principles Bluepeace does not encourage dredging and reclaiming lagoons. However, in a doomsday scenario with not many other choices, developing elevated adapted islands that may be the only solution left in a country’s climate contingency plan. But certain measures such as importing sand and other materials for reclamation and using silt fences to control sediments need to be taken to minimize the ecological damage to the existing local environment.

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A model of a contingency adapted island with 3 meters elevation where buildings are developed on stilts to reduce the strength of floods and extream storm events on the manmade island. As projected by IPCC,  the sea level will rise by less than a meter by 2100 but the contingency adopted island would still be more than 2 meters above the sea level . This island would also increase the country’s fresh water availability by developing  large groundwater table.

What is so sad is that there are still no signs that the developed nations will agree to the terms of the adaptation funds created in the Bali climate change talks. Developed nations should help the contingency country of the Maldives to develop at least seven elevated islands in different parts of the country as contingency islands.

The international community, especially the major polluters in the industrialized world are under moral obligation to take the differentiated responsibility to accommodate the victims of climate from the low-lying countries on high grounds and urgently formulate a multilateral treaty in facilitating citizenship.

The Maldives, which will be hit hardest by global warming, should demand developed nations to agree on the terms and modalities to allocate adaptation funds to developing countries based on their respective level of vulnerability to climate change, including the calculation of the rise in the sea level.

Hanifaru Bay, home to a large numbers of whale sharks.

Hanifaru in Baa Atoll, is an uninhabited island with a natural underwater bay -locally known as ‘Vandhumaafaru Adi’– famous for whale sharks. The bay, known to divers as ‘Aquarium’ is home to a large numbers of whale sharks, grey sharks, manta rays and sting rays, is also a nursery for these species.

Hanifaru Bay, nursery for a large numbers of manta rays and sting rays.

It is believed to be ‘one of the very few places in the world where whale sharks congregate to mate.’ Divers might have known the bay very recently. However, the fisherfolks of Baa Dhonfanu and other nearby inhabited islands had known the place for centuries, not as a dive spot, but as a whale shark fishing point; whale sharks, caught for their liver oil and/or fins, used to be an important source of livelihood for them.

Hanifaru Bay, one of the very few places in the world where whale sharks aggregates for mating.

The Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, in June 1995 imposed a ban on all fishing, capturing or the taking of whale sharks under the Fisheries Law. Whale shark is also listed as ‘vulnerable’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).

The Maldives is a party to the Biodiversity Convention, Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety and UNESCO Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. Under these treaties the Maldives has obligations to ensure the conservation and protection of habitats and species in both national and international context.

It is a sad irony that the Fisheries Ministry, which is empowered by the Fisheries Law to establish special sanctuaries, has recently leased Hanifaru to a private party on a long term basis, to be developed for industrial purposes. Furthermore, the island was not put on tender, and no Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment (SEIA) was done.

Hanifaru Bay, home to a large numbers of sharks.

Any industrial activity on Hanifaru will upset the fragile ecosystem of Vandhumaafaru Adi. This ecosystem, vital for the aggregations of whale sharks for mating, is a unique natural habitat and one of the very few such places in the world. It is imperative that this bay is protected from human encroachment and declared as a whale shark sanctuary.

Since time immemorial artisanal coral sand extraction or mining from local beaches and lagoons, mainly for construction purposes, has been a common practice in the Maldives. However, within the last four decades the Maldives has been experiencing a massive boom in the construction of cement houses and high-rise concrete buildings. Up to late 1980s, almost all the cement houses and buildings were built with coral sand and coral aggregates from local beaches and lagoons. In the late 1980s, imports of river sand and aggregates from India started to replace coral sand and coral aggregates in the construction of high-rise buildings.

“UNEP’s field mission found that artisanal extraction of coral sand from lagoons (manually using sacks was evident at nearly all the islands visited. UNEP witnessed uncontrolled coral sand exploitation, and visual evidence indicates that coral sand extraction has increased since the tsunami.” (Maldives Post-Tsunami Environment Assessment Report)

India has over the years allowed the exports of these commodities to the Maldives under a special arrangement which has placed an exception on those commodities which are otherwise prohibited to be exported from India. Last year 300,000 MTs of river sand and 270,000 MTs of aggregates were allowed to be imported to Maldives from India. However, post tsunami reconstruction boom associated with developing more resorts have created a shortage of river sand. Thus the price of river sand rose from around RF490 (US$38) per ton to RF900 (US$70). Furthermore, the recent hike in prices of oil in the international market has increased the transportation costs of these commodities as well.

In 2008, India has increased the limit on export of construction materials – river sand by 30 per cent and stone aggregate by 95 per cent – to Maldives. However, the prices of river sand and aggregates have not come down.

Since most of the outer islands in the Maldives have no easy access to river sand and aggregates, the people have to get these commodities from Male’ region, and it’s too expensive to transport these commodities due to lack of a proper inter-island transport network. Poor islanders are left with no choice but mine coral sand from their own beaches even though it is prohibited.

In order to reduce the coral sand extraction from the local beaches and lagoons, it is imperative to make river sand and aggregates available nation-wide, of course, with subsidised prices, and also make available coral sand extracted during harbour dredging, in different sizes and qualities, that could be use for construction purposes.

What is ironic is that coral sand has been mined from some islands for the post tsunami reconstruction, further making these islands more vulnerable for erosion, sea level rise and storm surges. Even though sand extraction is prohibited from beaches of inhabited islands, it has been witnessed that the Government and internationals donors funded some projects involving extraction of coral sand.

Non-artisanal beach mining of Seenu Feydhoo’s southern side beach with the help of the Government earth moving vehicle to expand Feydhoo’s cemetry.
Photo: www.oursda.org

According to the “Maldives Post-Tsunami Environment Assessment Report” published by UNEP, ” A review of sand mining regulations from other countries that are less vulnerable to sea level rise and storm surges than the Maldives, France, UK, Japan, Netherlands and USA indicates sand mining in those countries is restricted to depths greater than 10m and at minimum distance from shore of 600 metres (See, e.g., www.seafriends.org.nz/oceano/seasand.htm). It is not known if the restrictions placed on beach sand mining in the Maldives have been assessed to determined their ability to protect islands from increased vulnerability.”

If coral sand mining along with other forms of coastal modification continues at the present rates, some of islands in the Maldives would be eroded due to these unwise activities. The coastal degradation caused by such undesirable activities have to be countered through protective measures that cost millions of dollars such as concrete coastal defence structures like the one around Male’. Uncontrolled sand mining has caused severe beach erosion in islands such as Fuvahmulah, and costly remedies in the form of coastal walls are in the pipeline.

“Although official statistics shows dramatic reductions in the total volumes of sand and coral extracted this may be due to the under-reporting of a now-illegal activity rather than a substantial reduction in demand.” (Maldives Post-Tsunami Environment Assessment Report)

It is pathetic that some of the islands might be erased from the map of Maldives because of our local actions much before forecast sea level rise due to global warming. If not for India’s river sand and aggregates, some of the islands might have already vanished through unreported illegal excessive mining of coral sand from the local beaches and lagoons. With the special arrangement, India is helping to save our islands from erosion by providing a substitute to coral sand and coral aggregates. One could argue that a part of India’s carbon emission could be traded off with this generous gesture to its low-lying neighbour, the Maldives.