The Maldives, Ground Zero for What Ails the Ocean
For the next two weeks I’ll be in the Maldives participating in a pair of very cool eco-symposiums. I’ve been to the Maldives three times before — the first, in 2005, on assignment for the New York Times post-tsunami (attached here) — and find it one of the best informational grounds for a variety of environmental issues currently challenging the world’s ocean. Obviously climate change and resulting rising seas are an every day concern in a place where 400,000 people live just a few feet above sea level. As are concerns about its vast system of coral reefs, which are suffering due to warming seas, and the impacts of overfishing even in a most-isolated part of the Indian Ocean. Check out the programs for both the first-ever WaterWoMen event to take place on Laamu atoll and the third annual S.L.O.W. Life Symposium at the Soneva Fushi resort. Both events are sponsored by the Six Senses Resorts and Spas and hosted by owner Sonu Shivdasani.
In person at the WaterWoMen event will be a mix of some of the world’s great ocean athletes (surfers, free divers, kite boarders, windsurfers) and ocean conservationists and non-profit thinkers; the S.L.O.W. Life Symposium will feature presentations by President Mohammed Nasheed of the Maldives, Sir Richard Branson, climate change writer Mark Lynas, Ashok Khosla, president of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and many more. I’ll be posting from the Maldives for the next couple weeks, so please stay tuned!
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