Climate Casualty

The outside world may know the Maldives as an ultimate holiday paradise in the Indian Ocean –pristine white sand beaches, breath taking blue waters and coconut trees. However, what really triggered me to visit the place is the sheer curiosity to see an age old civilization sitting on small scattered chunks of land almost equal to the surrounding ocean, and, therefore, as per prognostication by different scientific societies on environment around the world, its likelihood to become the first country on Earth to disappear beneath rising seas as a result of the global warming –perhaps the first ever to be succumbed to the inevitable.

By the time our plane started descending for Malé` airport, what all I could see from above was sporadic clusters of tiny islands that seemed like scattered dewdrops on a vast blue canvas. It was a curious sight to see our plane craftily manoeuvring the fine and intricate course as if passing through an invisible tunnel or a narrow corridor to align itself to the runway. Sitting and peeping down the window a surge of fear momentarily ran down my spine as I could physically sense the great precision and concentration required to touch down the landing gear at the right place and at the right moment to ensure that the plane did not over shoot ending up in the Indian Ocean. When the plane came to a final halt, I could see the ocean not more than 50 metres ahead across a road with regular traffic plying.

Coming out of the terminal gate we found ourselves standing on the pavement on the ocean protected by a railing. What more staggering was the spectacle of the water level almost equal to that of the road. After having a little sauntering around in the streets of Malé,` we consumed a typical Maldivian lunch cooked in coconut milk and exotic spices and quickly hired a Taxi –in this case a motor boat that took us to the Himmafushi Island, around 17 kms from Malé` and having a dimension of less than one square kilometre. This was to be our abode for the next one week.

The archipelago of the Maldives consists of 1196 low-lying islands arranged into a double chain of 26 coral atolls, so flat they scarcely breach the horizon. The nation’s entire land area is just 115 square miles sitting in 3500 square miles of ocean with few islands bigger than 300 acres. Threaded together the land and sea are the fabric of Maldivian identity.

Out of these, only around 200 are big enough to sustain a human habitat. It is located south of Indian Lakshadweep Islands and around 700 kms south west of Sri Lanka. The cumulative population of the Maldives is around 56,0000 out of which 80% of which lives on Malé`, the capital. This makes the Maldives one of the smallest country in Asia.

Twenty five hundred years of maritime living have shaped the culture and identity of the people of the Maldives. A peep into the history tells us that the civilization on the islands is as old as 300 B.C. People inhabiting the islands belonged to the Dravidian and Tamil Nadu races. Originally hailed from southern India and Sri Lanka, these people were basically fishermen and made these islands their permanent abode.

During the time of Ashoka, a vast number of Buddhist families migrated to the islands. Owing to their preaching and practices, Buddhism grew rapidly and by twelfth century CE, Buddhism became the main religion of these Islands. Islam reached the islands with the advent of Muslim traders. According to the famous traveller Ibn Batuta, who also happened to be there, Islam was spread with the efforts of a renowned Muslim scholar Abu Barakat. Ibn Batuta concluded his findings based on the innumerable ancient stone tablets on which etched was the history of the islands.

Today, hundred percent population of the Maldives is Muslim. In the 16th century, Portuguese got control of the islands and remained there till 17th century followed by a short stint by the Dutch. The British invaded the islands in 1887, primarily to facilitate their trade. Owing to the geographical location, the islands provided an ideal sojourn and intermediate station. On winning independence from Britain in 1965, the country drafted a constitution and the islands were named the Republic of the Maldives.

Today, Maldives is facing existential threat as most environmental reports with respect to global warming suggest that the Maldives is perhaps the most effected country having imminent threat to its very existence. This is because the lie of the land is less than one metre high above sea level. With most of the islands, including the capital Malé, stand about 3.5 feet above sea level; climate scientists forecast they will be inundated by the century’s end. The total absence of mountains and hills on the islands further deepens the threat.

As the pace of climate change accelerates, this tiny nation is trying to buy time, in hopes that the worlds’ leaders take drastic steps, concerted and mutually agreed, to reduce carbon emissions before the Maldives’ inevitable demise. As President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih told world leaders at the last UN climate conference in Scotland: “The difference between 1.5 degrees and 2 degrees Celsius is a death sentence for the Maldives.” And that was merely the latest cry for help.

A decade ago, Mohammad Nasheed, Solih’s predecessor, convened a cabinet meeting underwater in scuba gear and then proposed moving the entire population to Australia for safety. Extreme times warrant extreme measures. Many desperate plans, strategies and contingencies were formulated, including buying land elsewhere and shifting the entire population there. Finally, the thought dawned that instead of fighting with the sea, “Let’s learn to co-exist, adapt and strive to survive with it, the way it is”.

Hulhumalé, the man-made rescue platform, has an elevation of 6.5 feet, and is an artificial island that was created out of sand pumped from the sea floor. Named the City of Hope, the new city comprises sixteen 24-storey high rises, where residents around the Maldives are gradually being relocated to escape the rising seas. Each tower is home to multiple islands worth of people. The development was summoned into existence in 1997 by Herculean dredging of millions of tonnes of sand used as fill to turn two adjacent shallow lagoons into 1000 acres of compacted sand of what is now for the Maldivians ‘The New World’, connected to Malé in 2018 by a mile long bridge. The City of Hope has parks, commercial and business areas, markets, malls, skate parks, hotels and restaurants, schools, colleges, technical centres, hospitals and clinics, all built in what feels like a well-ordered seaside town.

The new City of Hope also carries a warning worth heeding as climate change wreaks increasing havoc on every continent: We may lose who we are even before we lose where we are. And if the Maldives manages to survive the changing planet, the question arises: what will be saved and what will be lost?