Word: islander
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...Japanese, the Maldivian government has shored up Malé's perimeters with sea walls and breakwaters (at a cost of $60 million, about 10% of the nation's gross domestic product in 2002). It has also taken steps to protect the living coral breakwaters that shield the rest of the island chain. Among other things, it has banned the mining of coral stone that for centuries has been used by villagers to construct mosques and houses. But what the government can't control is the temperature of the surrounding ocean--and that does not bode well for the future...
...village of Naalaafushi seems like a place out of time, where people drowse through the heat of the day beneath the shade of hibiscus trees and coconut palms. It's a charming island. It's also extremely small, not much more than a quarter-mile across. From the sandy street that runs through the center of town, you can see both the brilliant turquoise of the interior lagoon and, on the other side, waves breaking on the shallow reef that faces the Indian Ocean. There are dozens of islands like Naalaafushi in the Maldives--too many, say government officials...
Other ambitious projects are in the works as well, says Hamdun Hameed, Minister of Planning and National Development, pulling out a map of the islands, each one a dot on a ring of reef--an atoll--that traces out the shape of the mountain on which it formed. Here, Hameed notes, is the island of Kandholhudoo, whose residents experienced chronic flooding whenever high tides coincided with heavy monsoon rains. The last straw was the tsunami, which rendered all but eight of some 500 homes uninhabitable. Now, at the request of village leaders, the government is drawing up plans to move...
...beach bordered by trees and shrubs, and key areas near the center will be raised with landfill. On top of these artificial high points, public buildings--such as a school, a clinic, a mosque--will add a further vertical dimension, creating what government officials refer to as a "safe island," or at least a safer one. "Certainly we will leave the Maldives if we have to," says Amjad Abdulla, deputy director of strategic policy in the Ministry of Environment and Construction, "but we'd like to stay...
Before leaving Malé, I walk clear around the island, stopping at the monument to the tetrapods, the name given to the interlocking concrete blocks that form the towering breakwaters protecting the city's most vulnerable flanks. Behind the breakwaters I hear the crash of invisible waves, in front the laughter of children swimming in the intensely blue water of a narrow canal. I wonder, What will the Maldives be like a couple of centuries from now? Will its corals have adapted to warmer conditions, as some think possible, or will they be forced to seek refuge in artificially maintained reefs...