Maldives Map / Geography of Maldives / Map of Maldives - Worldatlas.com Print this map The Maldives, a group of about 1,200 islands, separated into a series of coral atolls, is just north of the Equator in the Indian Ocean . Only 200 of the islands are inhabited. It has a population of 393,988 and celebrates their National Day on July 26th. Many of these tropical atolls and islands are simply gorgeous, with swaying palms, white sandy beaches and deep-blue lagoons; none of the islands rise higher than 7.8 ft. above sea level. These low-lying specs of coral are subject to erosion, and stand at the mercy of any sea level rise. Some were severely damaged during the December 2004 Tsunami . The culture of the Maldives as we know it today, developed and flourished sometime around the 3rd century BC, as a 1,400 year-long Buddhist period cemented a foundational importance in the island's history.

Due to its strategic location, the Maldives aroused the interest of Middle Easterners , and by the 10th century AD trade routes were established and Islam was introduced to the region. Despite being ruled by an independent Islamic sultanate for centuries, the Maldives were taken over by the Dutch in the mid-17th century, and later, were driven out by British forces some years later. As a British protectorate, the Maldives were given military protection, and non-interference in local administration. At the emergence of a proposed constitutional monarchy, conflicts erupted, and the people of the Maldives pushed for independence. The Maldives successfully gained their freedom from the United Kingdom in 1965, and three years later, declared itself an independent republic. In 1978, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom was elected president, and a period of political stability flourished along with an increase in tourism and increased foreign contact. In spite of the booming economy, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's presidency was seen as controversial, and a series of coup attempts throughout the 1980s were attempted.

Additional riots in the capital city of Malè during August 2004 garnered worldwide attention, and prompted the president and his government to pledge much needed democratic reforms, including a more representative political system and expanded political freedoms. Prev Page 1/2 Next Page See Also AYADA MALDIVES LUXURY RESORT BOOK NOW! Included in Conde Nast Traveller’s list of best hotels in the Maldives, voted the‘Indian Ocean's Leading Luxury Resort’ and the ‘Indian Ocean's Leading Villa Resort & Spa’ at the 2014 World Travel Awards, Ayada Maldives is a private island resort offering a truly luxurious retreat with a genuine Maldivian style. Set in the relatively unexplored Gaafu Dhaalu Atoll in the south of the country – just a few kilometres above the equator – the luxury resort offers 122 spacious villas and suites, all with private pools, butler service and thoughtful five-star detailing. Traditional thatched-roof water-villas stand on stilts over the resort’s peaceful lagoon, while beach villas offer absolute privacy amid tropical greenery alongside powder-soft palm-lined white beaches.

Food lovers can explore the six restaurants, while those seeking complete relaxation will find their haven in the large spa which boasts a Turkish Hammam and eight private treatment villas. The resort is noted for its gardens and tropical greenery and is ringed by a pristine coral reef where dolphins are frequent visitors. The active can explore the area on a host of excursions while at the resort they can play tennis or badminton, take up watersports, learn yoga, Pilates or Zumba or simply hit the 24-hour gym. Outstanding diving and snorkeling opportunities surround the island on reefs that have barely been visited by humans while some of the Maldives’ best surfing breaks are just a quick speedboat journey away. Weddings take place just before sunset in one of the most beautiful private wedding chapels in the Maldives set in a tree-lined garden, or on the beach under a gazebo draped with flowing material. Garbage in Paradise: Inside the Maldives' Trash-Only Island | TakePart Bio Out of sight, out of mind is generally the rule of thumb around the globe when it comes to the garbage we create every day.

No matter how religious we might be about recycling , invariably each one of us is still responsible for filling a garbage bag or two each week, which then gets sets out on the curb, and—poof!—magically disappears. Thilafushi is repository to all of the trash from the 100 islands that host tourist accommodations. In supersized nations like the United States, Canada, Russia, or Germany, landfills are usually hidden from view (out of sight, out of mind) but in small island-nations like the Maldives , entire islands have been turned into dumps. The name of the Maldivian rubbish island is Thilafushi. It sits just four miles off the main island of Male and is distinguished by the thick black smoke rising from it all day long. To reach the trash-only island, you pass Prison Island (to hold miscreants and scofflaws) and Apartment Island (to hold the country’s ever-expanding human population). On Male, rocked recently by a presidential coup, more than 100,000 people live squeezed into one-and-a-half-square miles.

Despite the cramped space on an island in the heart of the Indian Ocean, theirs is a modern existence, with cars and motor scooters, apartment buildings, shopping malls, markets and government offices. Nearby, Airport Island is connected by a flotilla of floating taxis. All of this living produces a lot of garbage. Rather than sink it to the bottom of the sea (which I’m sure was the practice not so long ago), it is now all boated to Thilafushi, which is today completely covered in trash. Sadly, a poisonous fog hangs over what might have been just another of the 1,200 gorgeous Maldivian islands. This one is a faux island, though, created in 1992 to hold the country’s garbage. Today it receives 300 to 400 tons of trash each day. Locals are responsible, of course, but so are the 850,000 tourists who visited last year, each of them producing more than seven pounds of trash a day (five times what small island Maldivians produce). A few of the resort islands have focused on recycling, reducing use of plastic, and have built their own waste-to-energy plants, but just a handful.

Related Will Pacific Island Nations Disappear as Seas Rise? Maybe Not Will Pacific Island Nations Disappear as Seas Rise? Maybe Not Reef islands can grow and change shape as sediments shift, studies show. View Images Tuvalu weather forecaster Niko Iona stands on the tennis-court-size islet of Tepuka Savilivili, on the western rim of Funafuti atoll. The islet was stripped of its sediments and vegetation in 1997 by a cyclone. Photograph by Robin Hammond, Panos Pictures "If you were faced with the threat of the disappearance of your nation, what would you do?" That's the question Enele Sopoaga , the prime minister of the tiny Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu, asked fellow world leaders at the United Nations climate summit in Lima, Peru, in December. It's a question that leaders of Pacific Island states have been asking for decades. As a warming climate drives sea levels upward, low-lying island nations face an uncertain future—or no future at all, say these leaders, who warn of their nations' imminent disappearance.

Officials in Tuvalu , 600 miles (965 kilometers) north of Fiji , have been some of the most vocal critics of the world's large greenhouse gas emitters—industrialized nations such as the United States and China—which they accuse of not doing enough to curb emissions, contributing to the melting of ice sheets and rising seas . View Images NG Maps Sources: USGS/EROS; P.S. Kench et al. , Geomorphology "I carry a huge burden and responsibility," Sopoaga told the climate summit delegates in Peru. "It keeps me awake at night. Will we survive? Or will we disappear under the sea?" These are desperate questions. But how real is the threat? Are island nations like Tuvalu, where most of the land is barely above sea level, destined to sink beneath the waves, like modern-day Atlantises ? Not necessarily, according to a growing body of evidence amassed by New Zealand coastal geomorphologist Paul Kench , of the University of Auckland's School of Environment, and colleagues in Australia and Fiji, who have been studying how reef islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans respond to rising sea levels.

They found that reef islands change shape and move around in response to shifting sediments, and that many of them are growing in size, not shrinking, as sea level inches upward. The implication is that many islands—especially less developed ones with few permanent structures—may cope with rising seas well into the next century. But for the areas that have been transformed by human development, such as the capitals of Kiribati , Tuvalu, and Maldives , the future is considerably gloomier. That's largely because their many structures—seawalls, roads, and water and electricity systems—are locked in place. Their analysis, which now extends to more than 600 coral reef islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, indicates that about 80 percent of the islands have remained stable or increased in size (roughly 40 percent in each category). Only 20 percent have shown the net reduction that's widely assumed to be a typical island's fate when sea level rises.

Some islands grew by as much as 14 acres (5.6 hectares) in a single decade, and Tuvalu's main atoll, Funafuti —33 islands distributed around the rim of a large lagoon—has gained 75 acres (32 hectares) of land during the past 115 years. Two-thirds of the reef islands in the study migrated lagoon-ward as their ocean-side coastlines eroded and sediment built up on the side facing the lagoon. One of Funafuti's islands shifted more than 350 feet (106 meters) over 40 years. Reef islands, Kench says, are among the most dynamic landforms on Earth. And Tuvalu's are some of the most dynamic on record. With a scant ten square miles (26 square kilometers) of dry land, Tuvalu is one of the smallest countries in the world. Although there are many atolls and islands in the group, which lies midway between Australia and Hawaii, more than half of Tuvalu's 12,000 people live on just one island—Fongafale—on the eastern rim of Funafuti atoll.

View Images Low-lying stretches of atoll islands such as Fongafale, Tuvalu's most populous island, are sometimes overwashed by the highest spring tides, called king tides, which occur a few times a year. Photograph by Jocelyn Carlin, Panos Pictures Business as Usual I first came to Tuvalu ten years ago, my interest piqued by news reports suggesting (and sometimes stating outright) that the islands were doomed. Journalists had latched on to countries such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and Maldives as the environmental hard-luck stories of the new millennium. These postcard paradises had become poster children for a planetary crisis, with their inhabitants cast as the world's first climate refugees. "Tuvalu Sinks Today—The Rest of Us Tomorrow?" was a typical headline. A prominent environmental campaigner had declared that Tuvalu's leaders had "conceded defeat in their battle with the rising sea, announcing that they will abandon their homeland." A similar claim was made in Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth . "The evacuation and shutting down of a nation has begun," reported the British Guardian newspaper .

That islands like Tuvalu face an intensifying barrage of climate impacts is not in doubt. View Images More than 6,000 Tuvaluans cram onto Fongafale, a boomerang-shaped sliver of land on the edge of a vast lagoon. The highest elevation on Fongafale is only a few yards above sea level, making the island vulnerable to rising seas. Photograph by Koene/Hollandse Hoogte, Redux Besides the damage inflicted by sea-level rise itself—coastal erosion, surface flooding, and saltwater intrusion into soil and groundwater—they will suffer from increasingly frequent and severe weather extremes (droughts and cyclones) and die-offs of their coral reefs through ocean warming and acidification, leading to potential collapse of marine ecosystems that provide food and livelihoods for island dwellers. You Might Also Like Rising Seas: Will the Outer Banks Survive? But from what I could see, in 2004 it was business as usual in Funafuti. Government staff were about to move into a brand-new building overlooking the lagoon. The country's first cell-phone tower had just been erected. Tuvalu was enjoying a windfall profit from the sale of its "dot tv" Internet suffix.

Tuvaluans seemed in no hurry to evacuate their supposedly disappearing homeland. In November 2014, armed with Kench's findings, I returned to Tuvalu to see whether anything had changed. The first thing I noticed was that Fongafale was even more crowded than before. According to the 2012 census, Fongafale's population had increased by 1,500 since my earlier visit, to more than 6,000. So much for the shutting down of a nation. Island Building I hired a fishing dory and made a spray-drenched trip across Funafuti's 106-square-mile (275-square-kilometer) lagoon to an uninhabited island called Tepuka. It has the classic appearance of an atoll island: a pancake of sand with a mop of vegetation and, floating above, a confetti of seabirds. Such islands look static, but they are perpetual construction sites. Their surrounding coral reefs are factories that produce a constant supply of raw building material: calcium carbonate. The factory "workers" are biological agents that turn the skeletons of corals and other carbonate-containing creatures into sediment.

Fish, sea urchins, and sponges are the principal processors. In one year they can produce four pounds of sediment per square foot (21 kilograms per square meter) of reef. View Images Coral rubble, here washed up on the shores of Fongafale, is the building material of reef islands. It is pulverized by wave action and worked into the substrates of the islands, often causing them to grow in size even as sea levels rise. Photograph by Patrick Aventurier, Gamma-Rapho/Getty Mollusks, calcium-secreting algae, and tiny marine creatures called foraminifera add to the sediment supply. Tepuka's beaches have an orange tinge from billions of foraminifera skeletons. Geomorphologists, who study landforms, speak of an island's "carbonate budget"—its sedimentary profit-and-loss account. On the income side of the ledger is the rubble, gravel, and sand produced by the reef ecosystem or imported into it, by storms, for instance. On the expenditure side is sediment lost by being abraded to microscopic fineness, dissolved in seawater, or exported by waves or currents into the deep ocean.

The budget can stay more or less balanced for decades, centuries, even millennia, and then experience a sudden blowout, as when Cyclone Bebe hit Funafuti in 1972. Overnight the storm deposited a 12-mile (19-kilometer) ridge of coral rubble up to 13 feet (4 meters) high. That material was worked into the matrix of several reef islands on the southeastern side of the atoll—the side that took the brunt of Bebe's force—increasing the land area by 10 percent. Tepuka, on the western side, missed out on the Bebe deposit and is one of a handful of Funafuti's islands that have been shrinking. On the ocean side of the island, a three-foot-high (one meter) scarp of sandy soil up against the vegetation showed where wave action was scouring away the land. I'd seen this kind of erosion on island coastlines elsewhere in the world and had assumed it was evidence of irreversible loss.

But Kench's work offers a different narrative: abrasion on one side of an island, accretion on the other, with entire islands shifting on their reef platforms in response to wind, waves, and sea-level change. Yes, islands erode, Kench says, and that's often what people focus on: broad beaches where they used to play soccer as kids now reduced to a narrow patch of sand. Or perhaps the edge of a property crumbling into the sea. Or a family grave undermined by the tide. "But they often forget to look at the other sides of the islands, where beaches are growing," Kench adds. In Tepuka's case, a net loss in area of 22 percent since 1896 is only part of the story. The island has undergone an almost constant reworking of its sedimentary material during the past century. It's grown longer (by 550 feet, or 170 meters) and narrower (by 390 feet, or 120 meters), and its position has rotated clockwise on the reef. View Images Tuvalu's government buildings stand on the western shore of Fongafale, overlooking Funafuti lagoon.

Permanent structures such as buildings, roads, and electricity networks make it hard for developed islands to adapt to the dynamic changes in shape and size that reef islands undergo. Photograph by Jocelyn Carlin, Panos Pictures Although it's shrinking now, a big-enough storm could push Tepuka's sediment budget back into the black. It's happened before. Geological surveys across the island have shown that at times, large sections have been washed over by the sea, with tons of sediment deposited on top of the existing vegetation. The lesson of Tepuka, Kench says, is that it's important to focus on what sediment is doing and not just on sea level. Rising Seas Don't Equal Sinking Islands Tepuka is very young, having formed 500 to 1,000 years ago. Polynesians—whose occupation of the islands is thought to go back more than 2,000 years—might well have watched it grow. Tepuka's young age, says Kench, places its formation within a period of stable global sea level—which runs counter to the idea that reef islands can form only when falling sea levels trigger the processes of island building.

View Images NG Maps Sources: USGS/EROS; P.S. Kench et al. , Geomorphology Other work by Kench shows that such islands can form even when sea level is rising rapidly. His analysis of the sediments on Jabat , in the Marshall Islands, indicates that the island started forming nearly 5,000 years ago, when the oceans were rising to a peak of more than three feet (one meter) higher than today's sea level—a point that is likely to be reached again, or exceeded, by the end of this century, according to predictions by the International Panel on Climate Change . High-energy storm action built Jabat—the very condition that's forecast to occur with greater frequency as the planet's atmosphere warms. Kench's findings suggest that rising sea levels today might reactivate processes of island building that have long been relatively dormant. "If sea-level rise does ramp up to the levels they're talking about," Kench says, "I would expect islands to start showing increased rates of change.

The faster sea level goes up, the more dynamic these islands are going to appear." Reef Loss, Island Gain Some climate specialists believe that rising sea-surface temperatures and increasing ocean acidity may have an even more damaging impact on coral reefs than that caused by sea-level rise. You Might Also Like To Save Coral Reefs, First Save the Mangroves Since the beginning of the industrial period, some 250 years ago, the acidity of tropical surface waters has risen by 30 percent. Sea-surface temperatures have increased by about 1.8°F (1°C) during the past century. High water temperatures kill corals, and acidification affects their ability to produce their skeletons, since calcium carbonate dissolves in acid. Laboratory experiments suggest that the calcification rate of some corals could decrease by a third over the next three to five decades. Yet a reef's loss of living coral can be an island's gain—at least in the short term. In 1998, when a worldwide coral bleaching event killed up to one-sixth of the world's reefs, a huge repository of coral rubble became available for island building. If heat-related coral die-offs occur in coming decades, the sediment supply for islands is likely to increase.

View Images Malé, capital of the Indian Ocean archipelago Maldives, shows the vulnerability of densely built-up, low-lying islands to rising seas. Photograph by Wolfgang Kaehler, LightRocket via Getty Images But Kench cautions that scientists don't yet have a clear understanding of how changes in ocean chemistry will affect coral reefs, or how that might translate to islands. "We don't have a good handle on the time lag between when coral is killed and when it becomes available to an island as sand," he says. Over the time scales that matter to island nations—the next few decades when they'll be seeking to adapt to land changes—the critical factor, Kench says, is the reworking of sands and gravels around the reef islands. "And that's controlled by wave processes and whether there's sediment available. If sand is still being produced, islands are able to adjust and maintain their area." For Urban Islands, an Uphill Battle "Urban islands are in trouble because they've lost their capacity to adapt," Kench says. "They're environmentally degraded. Their reefs are damaged, the sedimentation processes are undermined, and the islands aren't actively connected to their reefs.

For densely urban centers, the only strategies to cope with rising sea levels will be engineered ones." Malé, the capital of Maldives—a 1,200-atoll archipelago in the Indian Ocean, and one of the countries predicted to be most affected by climate change and rising seas—is such an island. It's encircled by built structures such as seawalls, breakwaters, harbors, and artificial beaches. "Heavily fortified," is how Mohamed Aslam, an oceanographer by training and until 2012 the environment minister for Maldives, described it to me. "There's no room for natural processes to take place," he says. "I suppose if you spent enough money, you could continue to keep the sea out. But it's prohibitively expensive for a country with a small population and a small GDP to do that sort of thing on every island." View Images Saltwater intrusion into soils makes horticulture challenging on Tuvalu's nine island groups. Gardeners like Kitiona Tausi, above, try various methods to raise their plant beds above the salination level. On one island, Tuvalu's most important crop, a starchy tuber called pulaka, is grown in compost within concrete pits.

Photograph by Jocelyn Carlin, Panos Pictures But urbanized atoll islands are the exception in the Pacific. For less developed islands, supporting much smaller populations, Kench can foresee a future in which people coexist with island changes by developing agricultural practices that circumvent the problems of salinized soils, by harvesting and using fresh water more efficiently, and by building cyclone-resistant structures such as pole houses, which allow storm surges to wash through with minimal damage. Aslam agrees that a combination of natural processes and human intervention may enable island communities to cope with climate impacts. But he believes that the time horizon for adaptation is limited. He likens the situation to a person's immune system fighting an infection. You Might Also Like Luxury Maldives and The Indian Ocean Islands Holidays, Tailor Made Tours to The Maldives and Indian Ocean Islands | Greaves India Bespoke packages - no set itinerary The Maldives Discover over a thousand iridescent islands glistening amongst the indigo lagoons of the Indian Ocean. Suspended off the southern tip of India, the Maldives is the epitome of pure escapism. Here world-class luxury is set amidst white sands and the turquoise calm belies the burst of colour and life of the underwater gardens below.

Explore some of the worlds best diving and snorkelling off the many thousands of vivid reefs, and wrecks teeming with vibrant, tropical marine life. Whatever your needs, whether as a haven of tranquility, a family resort or a fascinating diving adventure, the Maldives is the perfect holiday destination to relax, reflect and rejuvenate. The only difficulty with the Maldives is deciding which of the Robinson Crusoe islands is the one for you. Please view further Maldives properties here . Introduction In 2012 The Maldives celebrated just 40 years of tourism, yet now it is viewed as one of the most sought after, lust worthy, bucket list destinations of the world. Aside from the luxurious accommodation, endless sea vistas and world class cuisine there really is something for everyone. Discover underwater restaurants, over water spas, private island dining, aerial photo flights, big game fishing, private cruises, surfing, diving and a host of other water sports and activities. The main international airport, Ibrahim Nasir International Airport is based on Hulhule island near the capital Male and is well placed to access the central and northern atolls.

The Maldives is well connected with most major international carriers from all over the world as well as connecting well with daily flights from India. THIS IS A SELECTION OF OUR FAVOURITE HOLIDAY PROPERTIES, BUT THERE ARE A GREAT MANY MORE TO STAY IN AND DISCOVER, SO DO CALL GREAVES IF WE HAVE NOT MENTIONED ONE THAT YOU WISH TO VISIT. THE MALDIVES IS THE PERFECT PLACE FOR COMPLETE SERENITY AND RELAXATION AFTER A TRIP THROUGH INDIA, OR EVEN AS A DESTINATION ALL ITS OWN. Maldives Presentation The group of 1,200 islands lies in the Indian Ocean, between just south of the equator and 8 degrees north, about 675 km south-west of Sri Lanka. About 200 islands are inhabited. The total area including land and sea is about 90,000 square km. General Information Republic of the Maldives is a chain of around 1200 islands stretching 750km across the Indian Ocean with the northernmost island at 7° 06" N and the southernmost island just crossing the Equator at 04° 42" S.

The exact number of islands varies according to the season and method of classification - islands come and go with the wind, waves and currents! Maldives Builds Barriers to Global Warming : NPR Maldives Builds Barriers to Global Warming Embed Embed Maldives Builds Barriers to Global Warming Maldives Builds Barriers to Global Warming Embed Embed A bulldozer makes its way past palm trees on Hulhumale, an artificial island built by Maldives. Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images Countries struggling with climate change could learn a lot from a constellation of tiny islands in the Indian Ocean. The Republic of Maldives was one of the first countries to recognize the danger of rising sea levels. It's also one of the first to come up with a plan to adapt to a warmer world. It's easy to see why this nation is so attuned to climate change. In the Maldives, you can climb a small palm tree and be higher than the highest point of land. These islands burst through the surface of the ocean thousands of years ago when a chain of underwater volcanoes erupted. They've been subsiding ever since. Only the very tops, now capped with coral sand, remain above water.

That has created a paradise for tourists. But the pristine blue water that draws people from around the world is also threatening to wash away the entire country. Rising Waters President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom has spent the past couple of decades talking about that threat. In 1992 at the United Nations Earth Summit, he said, "I stand before you as a representative of an endangered people. We are told that as a result of global warming and sea-level rise, my country, the Maldives, may sometime during the next century, disappear from the face of the Earth." Article continues after sponsorship It was a dramatic claim at a time when few people had even heard of climate change. Today, though, scientists agree that the Earth is getting warmer and polar ice is melting. Azeez Abdul Azeez Hakim runs a marine research lab on the island of Vabbinfaru in the Maldives. He says that as polar ice melts, "this water has to go somewhere, and there is no way that we can prevent this water coming into the Indian Ocean, into the Maldives." Of course, floods are nothing new to people here. The 2004 tsunami pretty much submerged the Maldives for several minutes.

In 1987, tidal surges flooded the capital, causing millions of dollars in damage. A Hands-On Approach But Azeez says things are going to get worse. "We have to survive," he says. "We have to find a way to prevent water, sea water coming into the island." But how? President Gayoom initially tried political solutions. The Maldives was the first country to sign the Kyoto protocol to fight global warming. But that hasn't done much yet to slow down sea-level rise. So Gayoom, ruler of the Maldives for 30 years now, has been experimenting with a more hands-on approach, starting with a project near his presidential palace. His first effort was a massive seawall made of concrete tetrapods. It surrounds the entire capital of Male. Gayoom was able to persuade the Japanese government to pay for the $60 million wall after the floods of 1987. The wall reduced the vulnerability of Male, which is a mile long and houses one-third of the country's population. But the wall also makes Male the least attractive of the Maldives' 200 inhabited islands.

So Gayoom — whose power here lets him do pretty much anything he wants — is now trying something a lot more ambitious just across the lagoon. A Flood-Resistant Island You catch a ferry from a part of Male where motorcycles clog the narrow streets and fishermen gut their morning catch on the sidewalk. A few minutes later, you arrive in a brand new world, the island of Hulhumale. It's an artificial island built by engineers, not volcanoes. When the ferry arrives, you step up onto this island. The streets are straight and wide. There's a new hospital, new schools, new government buildings, new apartments — all several feet higher than the rest of the Maldives. The flood-resistant island was created by a huge dredge that sucked up sand from the ocean floor and disgorged it into a shallow lagoon. Eventually, Hulhumale rose from the waters. That was more than five years ago. Now, several thousand people live here. Gayoom's goal is to attract at least 50,000. But unlike their president, residents don't talk much about climate change. They say they like Hulhumale because it's clean. It has wide sand beaches instead of a concrete seawall.

Apartments are less expensive than on Male. Maldivians' priorities come as no surprise to Mohammed Chaid of the Hulhumale Development Corporation, which was set up by the government to build and settle the new island. "The higher elevation of the land is to address the sea-level rise," he says. "But the primary factor is to create a city to ease the congestion in Male." So Gayoom appears to have solved two major problems at once: creating a safer place to live and getting people to move there. As governments around the world are discovering, most people won't make big changes because of the distant threat of global warming. But they will change for an immediate and tangible benefit. Let's face it, we're more likely to buy a hybrid car if we can drive in the carpool lanes while we're saving the planet. So climate change may not be the main reason Maldivians are moving to their new island. But it has helped the country pay for it. "That is an example of how we can adapt to future changes," says Abdulla Naseer, who runs the Ministry of Fisheries. "But of course, it involves a lot of costs as well.

And President Gayoom wants other countries to help pay the costs of finishing Hulhumale, which is only half done, and raising portions of several other islands. His strategy has been to make the case that developed nations are causing climate change and that they must help pay for solutions like taller islands. "Over half of our islands are eroding at an alarming rate," Gayoom said at the U.N.'s climate change meeting in Bali in late 2007. "In some cases, island communities have had to be relocated to safer islands. Without immediate action, the long-term habitation of our tiny islands is in serious doubt." By action, he means money. And thanks to a change in the political climate over the past couple of decades, Gayoom is likely to get what he wants. Produced by Jane Greenhalgh Sinking States: Climate Change and the Pacific | The Diplomat Image Credit: REUTERS/Reinhard Krause Sinking States: Climate Change and the Pacific Pacific Island states are some of the most vulnerable in the world to the devastating effects of climate change.

By Gemima Harvey for The Diplomat May 22, 2014 Looking to the canary in the climate change coal mine — low-lying island states that are slowly being swallowed by the sea — offers a clear warning of the perils associated with a warming planet. With sea levels steadily rising, spurred by melting glaciers and ice sheets and thermal expansion of the ocean as the water warms, small island developing states (SIDS) are increasingly besieged, their shores nibbled away by a swollen tideline. Latest reports by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project a sea level rise in the range of 26 to 82 cm by 2100. The rate of rise is dependent on whether the temperature increase is kept to a minimum forecast of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, or whether it reaches worst-case projections of 4.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. Climate change has been declared “ unequivocal “ by the IPCC, the leading international advisory body, with more than 800 scientists from all over the world saying with 95 percent certainty that climate change is anthropogenic (caused by human activity).

Climate change is happening because heightened amounts of heat-trapping gases are working like a blanket and warming the globe. The main culprit in the group of man-made greenhouse gases (GHG) fuelling global warming is carbon dioxide (CO2), released into the atmosphere primarily by burning fossil fuels — such as coal, oil and natural gas — for energy. Deforestation also plays a key role because with fewer trees to absorb GHG, more heat-trapping gases freely pollute the air. Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month. If we continue contaminating the atmosphere at the current rate, according to the IPCC, the world will continue its trajectory toward the most catastrophic temperature scenario. Put simply — business-as-usual cannot continue without disastrous consequences. One of those consequences will be the death of small island states. The Maldives is the world’s lowest-lying country, with more than 80 percent of its scattered islands less than one meter above sea level. It will be one of the first nations submerged.

In 2009, then-President Mohamed Nasheed (the subject of a documentary called “ The Island President ” that deals with the subject of climate change) staged a cabinet meeting underwater to raise awareness about the future of the country if anthropogenic global warming was left unchecked. This archipelago in the Indian Ocean is not alone in gradually drowning: as many as 1,500 of Indonesia’s islands could be underwater by 2050. United States Secretary of State John Kerry, told students in Jakarta that climate change poses a threat to their “entire way of life” and that it was “perhaps the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” Pacific Island states— such as Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands — are also suffering the effects of climate change and while eventually being engulfed by the sea is a slow-evolving peril, immediate threats include more intense storm cycles and seawater intrusion of ground water and crop soil. Kiribati President, Anote Tong told Bloomberg Businessweek that his country, a necklace of coral islands, has fewer than 20 years to live. “If nothing is done, Kiribati will go down into the ocean. By about 2030 we start disappearing.

Our existence will come to an end in stages. First, the freshwater lens will be destroyed. The breadfruit trees, the taro, the saltwater is going to kill them.” SIDS in the Pacific region contribute just 0.3 percent of global GHG emissions yet these island communities are on the frontlines of climate change. The United Nations has dubbed 2014 as the International Year of SIDS. With a critical climate treaty to be negotiated in Paris next year — which is supposed to agree on binding measures to reduce emissions and limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius — the designated year of SIDS is central in raising the profile of those nations particularly vulnerable to a warming world. At the UN launch of the International Year of SIDS, the president of Nauru, Baron Waqa said : “No people or country has faced the risk of total inundation from rising seas before. Yet, that is exactly what we must contend with — losing entire languages, cultures, histories, and all the progress that came at such a high cost for those who came before us.

We celebrate this special year with the sombre knowledge that unless action is taken soon some islands won’t make it to the end of the century.” While SIDS face unique challenges, no country or region is untouched by climate change — global warming knows no boundaries. All over the world, extreme weather events such as floods and droughts are expected to become more frequent and severe, with wide-reaching effects on food and water security. Meanwhile, the Earth’s oceans, which act as a carbon sink, are becoming more acidic as they absorb increased amounts of CO2 from the air. This has significant impacts on biodiversity, such as corroding the shells of sea creatures and causing alarming behavioral changes in some fish. Earlier this year the IPCC released two major draft reports. One, “ Impacts, Adaption and Vulnerability ” paints a grim picture of how societies will be afflicted by climate change and states that, “Responding to climate-related risks involves decision-making in a changing world, with continuing uncertainty about the severity and timing of climate-change impacts and with limits to the effectiveness of adaptation.” Climate Change Versus Capitalism The other IPCC draft report, “ Mitigation of Climate Change ,” was launched in Berlin last month.

It detailed a range of climate change mitigation tactics with emphasis on a transition to renewable energy. It notes that the world needs to at least triple clean energy sources (zero and low carbon) by 2050 in order to have a chance of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C above preindustrial levels. Moving toward clean energy sources may seem an obvious path toward cutting C02 emissions, but this transition requires taking on some large and powerful interests on the well-established energy stage. Investment in fossil fuels must start falling by tens of billions of dollars a year; limiting the severity of warming means leaving these resources, and the profit they represent, in the ground — an unattractive prospect for the conventional energy sector. Last month Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in an article for The Guardian, appealed for the abandonment of fossil fuel investment and called for focus on finding sustainable solutions to save the planet. “We live in a world dominated by greed. We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our Earth. It is clear [the companies] are not simply going to give up; they stand to make too much money.” A transition toward renewable energy sources, namely wind, water and solar power, requires political will and ethical prioritizing.

In 2011, global investment in renewable energy overtook investment in fossil fuels for the first time, and hit $228 billion in 2012; the market is expected to account for 25 percent of all energy generation by 2018. Still, in 2012, global fossil fuel subsidies totaled $544 billion, while renewable energy sources got just $101 billion in government support. Last month, CO2 levels in the atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million for the first time in human history. This means we are fast approaching our “ acceptable ” threshold; it’s not too late to put a cap on climate change but concrete action is needed now. Author and journalist, Naomi Klein, articulated the underlying challenges of concrete action perceptively in a recent article . She wrote that climate change “entered mainstream consciousness in the midst of an ideological war being waged on the very idea of the collective sphere.” Klein points out that this mistiming deeply affects our ability to decisively act. Addressing climate change requires collective, prudent action, action that goes against the grain of shortsighted, self-serving capitalism.

“It has meant that corporate power was ascendant at the very moment when we needed to exert unprecedented controls over corporate behaviour in order to protect life on earth. It has meant that we are ruled by a class of politicians who know only how to dismantle and starve public institutions, just when they most need to be fortified and reimagined.” Australia: ‘Sleepwalking Toward Catastrophe’ Australia is one country that has been busily dismantling its climate change institutions. Elected last September, the conservative coalition government swiftly axed the Climate Commission — Australia’s independent authority on climate change. Environmentalist, David Suzuki, labeled this “wilful blindness” or a tactic to “deliberately suppress or ignore information that is vital to the decisions they’re making.” (With financial support from the public it has since been re-established as the Climate Council ). The government, led by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, then moved to dismantle the Climate Change Authority, which advises on emission reduction targets, and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, which supports private investment in renewable energy. These efforts have, so far, been blocked in the Senate .

Also, notably, for the first time since 1931 , when the science portfolio was created, Australia does not have a designated Science Minister. Leading social scientist, Bruno Latour, describes this approach of wilful ignorance championed by the Abbott government as the: “Australian strategy of voluntary sleepwalking toward catastrophe.” Abbott said his country should be the “ affordable energy capital of the world ” given its vast coal and gas assets; it has the fourth-largest share of proven coal reserves in the world. “Australia is open for business,” goes the government’s mantra . After the election, coalition finance spokesman, Andrew Robb, told The Australian that the government would reboot the mining boom. “We can get Australia open for business, we will restore an appetite for risk and investment.” The first item of business in being “open for business” was taking steps to repeal the carbon tax, which puts a price on carbon by taxing the biggest polluters (the move has been blocked for now). Axing the carbon tax was one of the coalition government’s key campaign pledges.

Abbott blames this tax, along with the Renewable Energy Target (RET) — which seeks to source 20 percent of the country’s energy from renewables by 2020 — for a massive surge in electricity prices. Chairman of the government’s Business Advisory Council, Maurice Newman, has echoed these sentiments, in addition to calling climate change a “scientific delusion” and a “gigantic money tree.” Australian electricity prices have reportedly doubled over the last several years. However, an investigative report by Jess Hill at Radio National cuts through the spin, finding that the lion’s share of the price spike is linked to network costs associated with updating the energy grid. In reality , more renewable energy entering the mix will mean more supply and more competition, lowering wholesale energy prices. But in an already oversupplied energy market, introducing more clean energy will require displacing conventional providers. And while this should be seen as a good thing for the planet and its inhabitants — given that dirty coal is currently used to generate 76 percent of Australia’s energy needs (natural gas and renewables account for 12 percent each) — unsurprisingly, conventional energy providers are lobbying for the RET to be rolled back.

Earlier this year, the government appointed Dick Warburton , who has openly expressed doubts that global warming is caused by human activity, to head a review of the renewables scheme. Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum recently expressed concern that Australia risks going backwards on climate change under the new government. “We are having difficulty understanding Australia’s climate change policies and their new environmental regime. We don’t understand what they are thinking…It is as if our big brother doesn’t understand us. The same message is going to Australia from other countries in the Pacific forum. Little brother is saying, ‘Big brother should get up and smell the flowers.’” Will Australia also turn its back if islands drown and newly stateless Pacific islanders come knocking? Climate Refugees “Climate refugee” is a term that grabs headlines, although it has no legal meaning. Last year, a man from Kiribati, living in New Zealand with his family on an expired visa, applied for asylum based on the threats climate change posed to his shrinking, former island home.

His claim was rejected because environmental hazard is not a legally valid reason to be considered for refugee status — the 1951 UN Refugee Convention is restricted to those fleeing persecution, for instance, on the basis of race or religion. And yet, as the sea overwhelms islands, people with no option but to retreat to higher ground in their home countries will need refuge. Migration is a measure of last resort. Adaptation is the priority and while the government of Kiribati is taking steps like building seawalls and improving freshwater management, it has also begun preparing for the harsh prospect that its islands will be completely uninhabitable by the end of the century. It has purchased 6000 acres (24.3 square kilometers) of land in nearby Fiji as an insurance policy, to ensure future food security and possibly even to use as a resettlement site.

The government’s website notes that some villagers have already been forced to move inland because of flooding and with land in short supply, “We are in danger of falling off if we keep moving back.” There is also focus on the concept of “ migration with dignity ,” which aims to create opportunities for people to migrate now, before they are forced to, and to ensure young people are given a high standard of education and are equipped with sought-after skills so they can get jobs in neighboring countries such as Australia and New Zealand. Noteworthy is that each of Kiribati’s atolls (ring-shaped coral islands) has a unique underlying geology and while some are rising, others are subsiding as a result of tectonic shifts beneath them. A swollen sea will more swiftly swallow those that are already sinking. Climate change acts as a threat accelerator, exacerbating existing issues. Kiribati already has problems associated with overcrowding. Half of its population of 100,000 people is packed into the capital of South Tarawa, which covers an area of about 16 square kilometers, just 950 meters at its widest point.

Because of the multi-causal nature of migration, the difficulty in differentiating “natural disasters” from “climate disasters” and the lack of an international legal framework, forecasts of future “climate refugees” vary markedly. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) puts the range of environmental migrants, those moving both within their countries and across borders, between 25 million and 1 billion people by 2050, with 200 million being the most widely cited figure. IOM author of “ Migration and Climate Change ,” Oli Brown, commented: “There has been a collective, and rather successful, attempt to ignore the scope of the problem… so far there is no ‘home’ for forced climate migrants in the international community, both literally and figuratively.” Climate change migration is a subject that will capture growing attention. The governments of Switzerland and Norway are leading the way forward with the Nansen Initiative , a process intended to build consensus on a protection agenda for people displaced across borders in the context of climate change.

And while solutions are sought, the president of Fiji has assured the people of Kiribati that: “Fiji will not turn its back on our neighbours in their hour of need…In a worst case scenario and if all else fails, you will not be refugees.” World Environment Day , on June 5, follows the small island developing states theme, featuring the slogan “Raise your voice, not the sea level.” This World Environment Day brings into focus the fact that, while island states may be on the frontlines of climate change — “ Planet Earth is our shared island .” Topics

Question: In which ocean is the island group the Maldives?
Answer: The Indian Ocean