Maldives to Battle Rising Seas by Building Fortress Islands

Rising sea levels threaten to swamp the Maldives and the Indian Ocean archipelago is already out of drinking water. Shubham KOUL / AFP
Rising sea levels threaten to swamp the Maldives and the Indian Ocean archipelago is already out of drinking water. Shubham KOUL / AFP
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Maldives to Battle Rising Seas by Building Fortress Islands

Rising sea levels threaten to swamp the Maldives and the Indian Ocean archipelago is already out of drinking water. Shubham KOUL / AFP
Rising sea levels threaten to swamp the Maldives and the Indian Ocean archipelago is already out of drinking water. Shubham KOUL / AFP

Rising sea levels threaten to swamp the Maldives and the Indian Ocean archipelago is already out of drinking water, but the new president says he has scrapped plans to relocate citizens.
Instead, President Mohamed Muizzu promises the low-lying nation will beat back the waves through ambitious land reclamation and building islands higher -- policies, however, that environmental and rights groups warn could even exacerbate flooding risks.
The upmarket holiday destination is famed for its white sand beaches, turquoise lagoons and vast coral reefs, but the chain of 1,192 tiny islands is on the frontlines of the climate crisis and battling for survival.
Former president Mohamed Nasheed began his administration 15 years ago warning citizens they might become the world's first environmental refugees needing relocation to another country.
He wanted the Maldives to start saving to buy land in neighboring India, Sri Lanka or even far away in Australia.
But Muizzu, 45, while asking for $500 million in foreign funding to protect vulnerable coasts, said his citizens will not be leaving their homeland.
"If we need to increase the area for living or other economic activity, we can do that," Muizzu told AFP, speaking from the crowded capital Male, which is ringed with concrete sea walls.
"We are self-sufficient to look after ourselves".
'Out of fresh water'
The tiny nation of Tuvalu this month inked a deal to give citizens the right to live in Australia when their Pacific homeland is lost beneath the seas.

But Muizzu said the Maldives would not follow that route.
"I can categorically say that we definitely don't need to buy land or even lease land from any country," Muizzu said.
Sea walls will ensure risk areas can be "categorized as a safe island", he said.
But 80 percent of the Maldives is less than a meter (three feet) above sea level.
And while fortress-like walls ringing tightly-packed settlements can keep the waves at bay, the fate of the beach islands the tourists come for are uncertain.
Tourism accounts for almost one-third of the economy, according to the World Bank.
Nasheed's predecessor, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was the first to ring the alarm of the possible "death of a nation", warning the United Nations in 1985 of the threat posed by rising sea levels linked to climate change.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned in 2007 that rises of 18 to 59 centimeters (7.2 to 23.2 inches) would make the Maldives virtually uninhabitable by the end of the century.
The warning lights are already flashing red.
Gayoom's fear of his country running out of drinking water has already come true, as rising salt levels seep into land, corrupting potable water.
"Every island in the Maldives has run out of fresh water," said Shauna Aminath, 38, the environment minister until last week, when Muizzu's government took power.
Almost all of the 187 inhabited islets in the archipelago depend on expensive desalination plants, she told AFP.
"Finding ways as to how we protect our islands has been a huge part of how we are trying to adapt to these changes", Aminath said.
- Environmental regulations 'ignored' -
The capital Male, where a third of the country's 380,000 citizens are squeezed onto a tiny island, is "one of the most densely populated pieces of land in the world" with 65,700 people per square kilometer, according to the environment ministry.
A giant sea wall already surrounds the city, but Muizzu said there is potential to expand elsewhere.
Reclamation projects have already increased the country's landmass by about 10 percent in the past four decades, using sand pumped onto submerged coral platforms, totalling 30 square kilometers (11 square miles).
Muizzu, a British-educated civil engineer and former construction minister for seven years, played a key part in that, overseeing the expansion of the artificial island of Hulhumale.
Linked to the capital by a Chinese-built 1.4-kilometre (0.8-mile) bridge, with tower blocks rising high over the blue seas, Hulhumale is double the area of Male, home to about 100,000 people.
But environmental and rights groups warn that, while reclamation is needed, it must be done with care.
In a recent report, Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the authorities of failing to implement their own environmental regulations, saying reclamation projects were "often rushed" and lacked proper mitigation policies.
It gave the example of an airport on Kulhudhuffushi, where 70 percent of the island's mangroves were "buried", and a reclamation project at Addu which damaged the coral reefs fisherman depended on.
"The Maldives government has ignored or undermined environmental protection laws, increasing flooding risks and other harm to island communities," HRW said.
Ahmed Fizal, who heads the environmental campaign group Marine Journal Maldives (MJM), said he feared politicians and businessmen saw shallow lagoons as potential reclamation sites to turn a quick profit.
"You have to ask 'what is the limit, what is the actual cost of reclamation?'", he said.



KAUST Study: More Large Mammals Roamed Arabian Peninsula than Previously Thought

According to KAUST, the study serves as a key scientific reference supporting the objectives of the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative. SPA
According to KAUST, the study serves as a key scientific reference supporting the objectives of the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative. SPA
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KAUST Study: More Large Mammals Roamed Arabian Peninsula than Previously Thought

According to KAUST, the study serves as a key scientific reference supporting the objectives of the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative. SPA
According to KAUST, the study serves as a key scientific reference supporting the objectives of the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative. SPA

A new study by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), published in the Journal of Biogeography, has identified 15 large mammal species that inhabited the Arabian Peninsula over the past 10,000 years - three times more than previously recognized.
According to KAUST, this study offers the most comprehensive list to date of large mammals from this period and establishes a benchmark for rewilding efforts in the region. It also serves as a key scientific reference supporting the objectives of the Saudi Green Initiative and the Middle East Green Initiative, as well as the programs of the National Center for Wildlife (NCW) and the National Center for Vegetation Cover Development and Combating Desertification.
"Restoration is not just about plants, for animals play a key role in vegetation communities. In highlighting which large mammals became extinct, we are providing information that will help governments decide which mammals to reintroduce in the future,” said KAUST senior project manager and contributor to the study Christopher Clarke.
During the study, researchers analyzed thousands of petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) collected during field expeditions as well as from shared social media content, which gave researchers access to a large collection of petroglyphs unknown to the scientific community.
The study revealed that most of the 15 mammal species come from Africa, including lions and cheetahs, and identified two species never previously recorded in the Arabian Peninsula: the greater kudu and the Somali wild donkey.
This study aligns with national efforts to restore ecological balance, particularly in light of the pioneering initiatives launched by NCW, including the reintroduction programs for the Arabian oryx and the cheetah.