Maldives: Nature’s bounty that is vanishing

The Maldives, a country of more than 1,200 small and beautiful islands, has been a British Protectorate, then an independent sultanate, and now a republic nation since 1968. It is like bounty of nature for tourists who come from different parts of the world, but if you see my country through my eyes, you will find it a nation meeting with slow death.

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The Maldives is helpless against rising sea level, but not at danger with storms. Storms go up more than 30cm and it is safe to live on the land about 40m above high tide. Most of the people in Maldives live on land within two meters of sea level and the entire country is within just four meters of sea level.

The beautiful nation blessed with nature’s paradise and pale, white sands and mountains are likely to be gone under sea because of environmental catastrophe. The rising level of sea is because of global warming. Different travel companies portray the islands as a tropical paradise, but you could feel the impact and signs of climate change in the coastal regions all across the islands. The government has also expressed concerns over the rising of sea level up to 0.9cm every year.

We know it better that more than 80 percent of 1,200 islands in Maldives have no lands more than one meter above the sea level. This is not a fear but the fact that within 100 years from now the Maldives could become uninhabitable for human being. More than 360,000 citizens living in 1200 islands would be forced to leave the country that would go under sea level. Our survival in Maldives has gone truly at stake. We minnows are facing a mammoth risk of life and death.

Maldives are the first country to sign the Kyoto Protocol to set targets for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in developed countries. Let me tell you about Male, capital of Maldives, which is surrounded by a 3m-high wall to save it from high tide and rising sea level. It took 14 years to build the wall at a cost of $63m. Japan government paid 99 percent of the total cost to build the wall. But, is this the solution to save a beautiful country from tidal surge. The wall might protect just one of the 200 inhabited islands in Maldives and what about the protection of other islands. Making wall to protect the island from tide surge is ok, but what about the rising sea level? How would the government protect the country from the longer-term threat?

Kandholhudhoo is a highly populated island located in the northern part of island. More than 60 percent of residents have decided to leave the place in the next 15 years and the rest of 40 percent of the people would do the same for sure to save them from sea death. They face the same fate every fortnight when tidal surges flood their homes every fortnight. The fishermen are not using the ‘Nakiy’ (a centuries-old weather guide based on stellar constellations) because it has been irrelevant due to climate change.

Country’s weather forecast has become very tough job for weather officials because weather is becoming volatile and less predictable day by day. We cannot take guidance from the alignment of the stars now. The government is trying to take precautionary measures to save the nation from the worst consequences of climate change but future generations will have to face an undecided fate for sure. In recent past, the government encouraged forestation to stop beach erosion and protect country's coral reefs, but all these steps are tiny against the broader impact of global warming in the whole region.

We are learning in our school and colleges about the importance of environmental catastrophe. The government has tightened norms to allow the building of all new resorts after taking permission from government. The government allows building resorts on only 20% of the islands. But is it a real prevention of the problem in Maldives?

Is this only the problem of Maldives when the ultimate fate of the country lies in the hands of people in power in India, China, Russia and the United States? I request you that if you have never been in Maldives come and see the beautiful country before it’s death.