Maldives greenlights destructive dredging to build housing and luxury resorts

Despite the fact that the project is multimillion-dollar, the president of Maldives will sign it this weekend. Warnings of the destruction it could cause to coral, fish and other seagrasses

Developers plan to pump 7,000,000 cubic metres of sand from a central lagoon to construct five four-star resorts, and expand urban areas in Addu, the southernmost Atoll of the Indian Ocean State.

Ibrahim Mohamed Solih will approve the intensive development on a visit 25-28 March, The Times of Addu reports. The project is popular with islanders hoping for jobs and better housing but comes at the cost of “significant irreversible damages” to the lagoon and surrounding reefs, according to a 751-page environmental impact assessment (EIA).

In an online meeting between environment minister Shauna Aminath and planning minister Shifaz Ali last July, minutes show that the environment ministry was “deeply concerned” about the project’s environmental impacts. But Aminath said this month in parliament that she “will not obstruct the development of Addu”.

The government is internationally known for its strong climate advocacy for sinking island countries. Mohamed Nasheed, a former president, hosted an underwater cabinet meeting to draw attention to rising sea level. Aminath also co-chaired Cop26 in Glasgow talks on climate change adaptation.

Humaida Abul Ghafoor is a campaigner with Save Maldives which opposes land redevelopment. She accused the government in hypocrisy of sacrificing the environment for economic development, much like the big emitters that it criticizes.

“A lot of international actors want to listen to the people representing the Maldives but [the government]They may speak English but not the English language to international people. [the national language] Dhivehi,” she told Climate Home News.

Addu is home for 20,000 people, located on six thin strips of land around a lagoon.

The proposed development will make use of dredging ships to pull sand out of the lagoon’s bottom and dump it in shallow waters to create a solid base for building.

According to the EIA, this process can cause damage to plants and sea animals by sucking them up from seabeds and stirring up sediment that causes water to become murky.

Andre Droxler, an environmental scientist at Rice University, has spent extensive time in the Maldives. He told Climate Home: “These ships are sucking in everything… it’s huge!”

He said that corals in the Maldives and around the world were already suffering from bleaching caused by increasing water temperatures and this dredging would further damage Addu’s corals.

Droxler stated that while most of the damage will be in the lagoon where the dredging is taking place, it could spread to Addu’s barrier reef that protects it from storm surges and sea level rise.

The dredging is designed to develop Addu’s tourism industry but it could backfire. Addu has very few international flights, so most tourists fly 90 minutes from Male, the Maldives capital, to get there.

One of the main reasons they do so is, according to the Lonely Planet, “some superb diving opportunities” and the chance to see corals and sharks.

The EIA estimates there will be an economic loss to Addu’s diving operators and four local dive schools of $4.8-7.7 million a year if the reclamation goes ahead.

“What tourists are they hoping to bring when everything that would bring tourists to Addu is going to be destroyed – its wildlife, its marine life, its biodiversity, its diving interest?” asked campaigner Ghafoor. “The business thinking is from the time of dinosaurs.”

Other than tourism, the Maldives’ other big industry is fishing and the environment ministry expressed concerns that the project would damage bait fishing for tuna, a complaint raised at two public consultation sessions.

Despite these concerns, the EIA concluded that the project is “well received by the community” who hope it will bring economic benefits.

Abdulla, who gave only his first name, is from Addu’s capital Hithadoo, where he said most people supported the project. “Housing is a real issue in the Maldives. Two to three generations live in an average Maldives household,” he explained.

He opposes the plans, and would like to see more environmentally-friendly options. “Show [people]They will listen to your suggestion for a better housing solution, even if it is not for land reclamation. They’re very educated,” Abdulla said.

Respondents to the EIA’s online survey had other suggestions for how to build more homes. These included encouraging multi-storey structures, seizing vacant and undeveloped land, and developing floating cities.

Abdul Hannan is a resident of the capital Male, and rents a simple three-bedroom house in Addu to budget travelers for $116 per night.

He told Climate Home that the Maldives had a “dilemma” and that “though the Maldives is very threatened with climate change, average Maldivians do not seem to be bothered”.

He said: “While reclamation – if not careful – might cause environmental problems, I suppose Addu people would be hoping to benefit from the reclaimed land rather than thinking about resulting environmental damages”.

“People will be expecting land plots to build houses or government-built flats. Businessmen will be hoping to get land plots for warehouses, storage places and plots for shops etc,” he added.

An Indian company, Afcons Infrastructure Limited, won a contract worth a reported $147 million for the work, backed by India’s export credit agency.

The Maldives is in a lot of debt. Its debt to national income ratio nearly doubled to 97% in 2020 after tourism collapsed.

Nasheed called for debt restructuring to allow the Maldives to invest in adaptation to rising sea levels.

Ghafoor disagreed. “Nobody owes us funding in that regard because the Maldives is destroying itself. It is self-harming”, she said.

Nasheed, who established an NGO called Maldives Coral Institute has not spoken against the project. Climate Home asked Nasheed for comment, but he did not respond.

“He is a politician. He has been instrumental in doing many of these things himself during his presidency,” Ghafoor said.

Campaigners are taking the government to court, arguing that the project is a violation of the 2008 constitution and its duty for the state to promote “ecologically balanced sustainable development” and “prevent pollution, the extinction of any species and ecological degradation”.

Ghafoor doesn’t have as much faith in the judiciary as she does in government. “We are not relying on that at the moment because the court is not a really good place,” she said.

Reclamation issues are not just a modern issue in the Maldives. Young Rae Choi, who studies reclamation projects at Florida International University, said that they have been occurring for centuries in places such as the Netherlands and San Francisco Bay.

They have been increasing in popularity, especially in East Asia and the Arabian Gulf. Globally, tourism is a minor driver of reclamation, compared with ports, airports and industry. Perhaps the most striking example of “prestige reclamation” is the Palm Jumeirah resort in Dubai.

She said that bringing sand in from outside of the atoll would be less environmentally damaging but also more expensive and “probably not economically feasible”.

Ajwad Mustafha is the environment ministry’s permanent secretary. He told Climate Home: “The main reason for the project is to create space to facilitate the development of Addu City, where there is currently no available land for additional housing and economic infrastructure…

“It is fully understood that a project of this magnitude will have significant environmental impacts, especially in an atoll like Addu,” he said. The Environmental Protection Agency is currently examining the EIA and may place conditions on the development.

“Therefore, the proposed methodology, environmental impacts and the mitigations measures suggested in the EIA may change. So, it is bit early for us to say what the actual impact would be at this stage, since this is an ongoing process.”

He stated that the project, in addition to reclamation, includes coastal protection and construction stormwater mitigation systems between the island, and newly reclaimed land.