Bluepeace in the News

Moving Images, Moving People!

Little voices from the waves: Maldives too young to die!

Nalaka Gunawardene - January 07, 2008

Then newly formed Maldivian environmental organisation Bluepeace was also part of the demonstration... read more

Los Angeles Times

Maldives Faces Global Warming 'Goliath'

By Dexter Filkins - November 29, 1997

Despite the slow pace of efforts to combat the greenhouse effect, some Maldivians, such as Ali Rilwan, see a measure of hope. There may be a lot of idle chatter by the industrialized nations about global warming, Rilwan said, but it's a start. "Ten years ago, we couldn't get anyone interested," said Rilwan, an environmentalist on Male. "Now, at least we've got their attention." ...read more

BBC

Heightened Fears for Lowering Lands

By Olivia Lang - January 12, 2009

Ali Rilwan, executive director of local environmental NGO Bluepeace, says that if the IPCC projection is accurate, the luxurious white sand beaches of the Maldives could disappear in a similar way to the ice sheets in the Arctic. "Our natural asset is the beauty of the islands. If the proper measures are not taken to protect these islands, I don't think the Maldives as a tourist destination can be sold as it is today," he says ...read more

Times Online

The Maldives: Trouble in Paradise

Rising seas are threatening to engulf the Maldives, so the president wants to buy a new homeland for his people. But should he instead be looking to build a new one on the grave of the old?

Christine Toomey - February 01, 2009

The country’s influential environmental group Bluepeace proposes that seven such safe islands be developed in different areas of the archipelago to give Maldivians the chance of continuing to live there as sea levels rise. “Most wouldn’t choose to leave and live thousands of miles from here,” says one of the group’s founders, Ali Rilwan. “We’re a very old civilisation. We wouldn’t want to be second- or third-class citizens somewhere else.” ...read more

The Independent

Maldives Aims to Become First Carbon-Neutral Country

By Jerome Taylor and Andrew Buncombe - March 14, 2009

Local environmentalists welcomed the plan. Ali Rilwan, founder of Bluepeace, noted individual resorts were aiming at carbon neutrality, using solar panels to generate electricity and sea water for air-conditioning. "This is the sort of thing international donors are very interested in," he said ...read more

BBC

Maldives Rises to Climate Challenge

By Chris Morris - March 17, 2009

"We're proposing big islands which are built up to three metres high in seven different parts of the country," Ali Rilwan from the NGO Bluepeace says. "That will be enough for the entire population of 300,000 people. "So the people who don't want to leave, those who don't want to become climate refugees - they can move to higher ground within the Maldives." ...read more

TIME

The Maldives' Struggle to Stay Afloat

By Ishaan Tharoor - May 07, 2009

"For us, fear of sinking is no different than the fear of persecution," says Ali Rilwan, head of Bluepeace, a local environmentalist group ...read more

The New York Times

Wanted: A New Home for My Country

By Nicholas Schmidle - May 8, 2009

Ali Rilwan, the executive director of Bluepeace, an environmental NGO in Malé, says he hopes that international laws could be amended to protect environmental refugees in the same way they protect political ones. ...read more

NewScientist

Paradise lost: Islanders prepare for the flood

by Gaia Vince - May 11, 2009

With time running out, though, some feel restoration will not be enough to save the Maldives. Local NGO Bluepeace believes that the nation needs to think bigger. Much bigger. It argues that what is really needed is a series of raised artificial islands, dotted around the archipelago. Bluepeace suggests that seven islands, perhaps paid for by the international community by way of compensation for causing the climate to change, could allow the entire Maldivian population to stay ahead of the rising waters ...read more