No Higher Ground
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: ADAM BEHSUDI
- Published: September 2, 2021
Threat assessment
- Maldives is surrounded by and dependent on the ocean that surrounds its "1,200 islands."
- Physical vulnerability statistics:
- "Eighty percent of our islands are less than a meter above sea level."
- "Over 90 percent of the islands report flooding annually."
- "Ninety-seven percent are reporting shoreline erosion."
- "64 percent of the islands experience severe erosion."
- "Fifty percent of all our housing structures are within just 100 meters of the coastline."
- Consequence: limited or no internal relocation options ("There’s no higher ground we can run to").
Adaptation measures and policies
- Nationwide physical protection:
- All "187 inhabited islands" have infrastructure protecting them from tidal swells and beach erosion (harbors, shoreline protection, erosion prevention measures), developed over "20–25 years."
- Coral reef health and resilience prioritized as "the first barrier of protection."
- Holistic policy mix beyond hard engineering:
- Net zero policy to shift energy from diesel to solar ("running on sunshine").
- Single-use-plastic phaseout by "2023."
- Targets and conservation commitments: protect "20 percent of our ocean resources by 2030" to safeguard reefs, mangroves, and biologically important areas.
- Waste management initiatives: two major projects with the Asian Development Bank and other development partners, and another with the World Bank to build "world-class waste management centers."
- Actions to stop open burning of garbage and improve island-wide waste management.
Role in global mitigation and leadership
- Example-setting accomplishments:
- Maldives phased out chlorofluorocarbons "10 years before the deadline in the Montreal Protocol."
- Stance: although greenhouse gas emissions are "negligible," Maldives seeks to "lead by example" and demonstrate feasibility for larger emitters.
Financing challenges and pandemic impacts
- Economic exposure:
- Tourism accounts for "28 percent of our GDP" and "60 percent of our foreign exchange receipts."
- Pandemic effects: loss of income for "over 30,000 people" directly employed in tourism; fishing exports disrupted.
- Fiscal reallocation during COVID-19:
- Funds intended for adaptation (water supply, erosion response, adaptation projects) were redirected to health care and emergency economic relief.
- Movement restrictions and lockdowns increased waste generation, worsening waste-management burdens.
- Multilateral and development-partner funds earmarked for climate/environment were "immediately redirected for the provision of urgent medical care supplies."
- Access-to-finance barriers:
- Difficulty accessing global climate funds due to project-development bureaucracy and stringent qualification requirements.
- Example: challenges in justifying harbor projects as economic infrastructure and in proving that erosion is caused by climate change given limited long-term local research data.
- Urgency constraint: "We don’t have time to wait until a project goes through different phases and different board approvals. If we did, there would be no island left!" — calls for "more direct access to global climate funds."
Motivation and outlook
- Political and social drivers:
- Scale and closeness of community make change feasible: "Because the Maldives is such a small country, change is really possible."
- Cultural and economic dependence on healthy natural assets (beaches, coral reefs, fisheries, tourism) motivates conservation.
- Inspiration drawn from international models of conservation (comparison to U.S. national parks) as a template for tourism-linked preservation.
- Governance emphasis: pursue holistic resilience-building across infrastructure, waste and energy systems, and marine conservation while seeking streamlined finance mechanisms.
Source: F&D Magazine interview with Aminath Shauna, September 2021.
Content in this bundle
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