With fish darting amongst them in a blue lagoon, the Maldivian president and his cabinet staged an elaborate stunt to publicize climate change. Billed as the world’s first underwater cabinet meeting, President Mohamed Nasheed and 11 ministers, decked in scuba gear, held a meeting thirteen feet underwater.
While officials said the event itself was light-hearted, the idea is to focus on the plight of the Maldives, where rising sea levels threaten to make the nation uninhabitable by the end of the century. Reported by the BBC’s Olivia Lang, the event reminded the world that Nasheed, the country’s first democratically elected president, has become an important global voice for climate change since he won in polls last October.
“We have to get the message across through a course of action which resonates with ordinary people,” the president said, as the boat neared our destination. “What we are trying to tell the people is that we hope there is a better deal at Copenhagen.”
The presidential speedboat took 20 minutes to arrive in the turquoise lagoon off Girifushi, in North Male atoll. The cabinet – minus two members, who begged off citing health concerns – then zipped themselves into diving suits and donned goggles and tanks of compressed air before jumping in the water.
Major Ahmed Ghiyaz, the co-ordinator from the Maldivian National Defence Force (MNDF), said all measures had been taken to protect the president, which included checking the coral for dangerous creatures.
“I am 99.9% sure there will be no harmful creatures,” he told the BBC before the dive. “I’m sure there won’t be any sharks. The nastiest thing would be a moray eel, but we have checked the reef”.
A horseshoe-shaped table was set up around a dark green coral reef with blue tips and home to an array of sea creatures in one of the world’s most famed diving spots.
The president and his team took their seats at 10 a.m. at the bottom of the lagoon, sitting at desks with name tags while colorful parrot fish and black and white damsel fish darted around them. Using hand signals to gesture that they were OK, ministers then passed round an “SOS” to be signed – an agreement calling for carbon emission cuts.
“We must unite in a global effort to halt further temperature rises,” the message reads.
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Mohamed Nasheed
President of the Maldives
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“Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth.”
Meanwhile, a handful of journalists kitted out in snorkel gear and swimming around on the surface tried to get a glimpse of the action below.
Emerging out of the water, a dripping President Nasheed removed his mask to answer questions from reporters and photographers crowded around on the shore.
“We are trying to send a message to the world about what is happening and what would happen to the Maldives if climate change isn’t checked,” he said, bobbing around in the water with his team of ministers.
“If the Maldives is not saved, today we do not feel there is much chance for the rest of the world.”
After the dive, the president told the BBC he had seen a stingray swim nearby during the meeting. “There was a sergeant fish that was particularly interested in what was going on,” he said during a typically Maldivian lunch of fish curry and coconut juice.
“I’ve never been worried about reef sharks and I’ve been diving for a long time,” the 42-year-old added. He says other Maldivians had heard about the event and wanted to get involved in some way. On the island of Kuda Huvadhoo, some islanders reportedly created a sealed box and put their TV in it so they could watch the footage of the meeting underwater.
“They told me, ‘if the president is under water, then they want to be too’,” Nasheed said.
But he was keen to push the need for action.
The 1,192-island chain is at severe threat from rising sea levels, with 80 percent of its islands less than a metre above sea level. “What do we hope to achieve? We hope not to die. I hope I can live in the Maldives and raise my grandchildren here,” says Nasheed.
I’ve spent many weeks along the coast of Vietnam and have a variety of friends who live and work along its low-lying shore so last week when Typhoon Ketsana whacked its beaches and jungles with one hundred mile an hour winds, heavy rains, mudslides and flooding, killing more than one hundred sixty people.
I heard from several living in the center of the country: “The airports in Danang and Hue are closed … both cities are flooded and without power … weather forecasters are predicting more heavy rain later this week … we will keep you updated.” In Vietnam the storm wiped out nearly 200,000 homes and ruined both crops and irrigation systems, leaving some of its largest cities roiled in waist-deep, murky brown waters for days. It could have been worse: More than 246 were killed in the Philippines, where 2.3 million were left homeless.
Storms happen, of course. But in recent years Vietnam has experienced more frequent and powerful typhoons and floods than ever before. The most destructive storm along its coast was 1999, which left 750 people dead or missing.
I’m often asked about the ‘real’ impacts of a changing global climate and I think these more ‘frequent and powerful’ storms are one of the most serious examples. Coincidentally, five days before Typhoon Ketsana slammed Vietnam, Seth Mydans had written a long story in the Times about the long-term potential damage to Vietnam’s coast by rising seas. He quoted a government report suggesting that 17 million people could lose their homes if sea levels rise as anticipated. “Climate experts consider this nation of an estimated 87 million people to be among the half-dozen most threatened by the weather disruptions and rising sea levels linked to climate change that are predicted in the course of this century.”
Unfortunately I think we’ll have to get used to seeing these images of low-lying coastlines around the world flooded, suffering from stronger and stronger storms, whether it’s Danang or Manila, New Orleans or New York City. One friend from Hue wrote: “I spent the day dragging everything in my house up to the roof to dry it in the sun, which has arrived after three days. Luckily I still have a house. Everyone here is worried about … next time.”
Afloat on the Dead River in northern Minnesota just a few miles south of the Canadian border on a – finally – beautiful early summer day with my friend Will Steger we are on the lookout for the critters that habituate this part of the world – beavers, moose, painted turtles, loons, otters, minks, black bears and many more. The sky is indigo, studded with big white cumulus clouds, and the river’s banks lined with just-blooming lily pads backed by tall reeds. The river got its name not because it’s a dumping ground for bodies or badly polluted but because it is so still. Which is perfect for us, as we float its length after exiting Burnside Lake.
While much of the afternoon is spent in silence, listening to the wind, feeling the sun burn on pale skin, we talk about the state of, well, everything … from politics to small town gossip, climate change to the best way to plant rhubarb. I ask Will, whose dog sledded, skied, canoed and swum around the Arctic as much as anyone alive, what he’d heard about recent North Pole and Arctic adventures. (He’s casually starting to talk about an ambitious dogsled expedition tracing the Northwest Passage in a couple years time.) He mentions John Huston, a mutual friend, who managed Will’s 2007 expedition across Ellesmere Island. “What John did was really incredible, quite different from when we went to the North Pole in 1986 with dogs.”
Just a few days before I’d had an email from John, with some insight into his recently completed North Pole expedition:
On April 25, 2009 we Tyler Fish – and -myself became the first Americans to reach the North Pole unsupported and unassisted. Our 55-day journey, which began at the northernmost point in North America, Ward Hunt Island, Canada, has been called ‘the hardest trek on the planet.’ We skied and snow shoed over 480 miles on the frozen dynamic surface of the Arctic Ocean.
The Arctic Ocean is perhaps the place on earth most affected by climate change. So having just spent almost two months living there, people always ask us “Did you see the effects of climate change?” or “Did you see the ice melting?” The answer is never simple, but surely the ice we traveled over is quite different from the ice 25 years ago.
According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, over the past 30 years the ice on the Arctic Ocean has decreased drastically in area and in thickness. Thinner ice is weaker, more susceptible to melting and cracking than older sea ice.
During the last month of the expedition we donned dry suits and swam across 10 or 12 open leads (cracks of water between ice flows). Swimming is not that cold of an experience since the water temperature can be up to 60°F warmer than the air temperature. In recent years most expeditions to the North Pole from Canada have not had to swim more than just a few times.
Over the last two weeks of the expedition we were battered by winds out of the northwest. These winds pushed the pack ice to the southeast 6 to 8 miles every 24 hours, in a direction away from the North Pole. In order to reach the pole in time for our scheduled pick up by a Russian helicopter we slept only 3 of the 66 hours before setting foot on the North Pole. Most of that time we were skiing on the extremely slippery snow/ice crust that has not been visible this early in the season until the past few years.
Some scientists say that the Arctic Ocean may be ice-free during the summer within 30 years. In as few as 10 years it may not be possible to ski to the North Pole.
Especially around his native Minnesota these past four years, Will’s been leading the charge in regard to trying to get local governments to start including warming temperatures in any long-range planning. Like John Huston, Will has seen the changes happening across the Arctic up-close, and is both saddened and angered about what’s happening. But on a warm July day on the edge of the Boundary Waters its best to keep those sentiments – sad and angry – at bay and instead keep your eyes peeled for painted turtles slipping off logs into the Dead River.
Saffah Faroog sips a mango juice and continues explaining the history of the Maldives oldest environmental group, Bluepeace, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year. He is its communications director, a volunteer like the rest of its staff, and has a great story to share – the organization has a great web presence and a long history of doing the right thing in the Maldives by keeping environmental stories in the news. There’s no lack of subject matter with beach erosion, species loss, the impact of climate change and rising sea levels and the still lingering after effects of the 2004-tsunami, still daily stories.
“Perhaps the most impressive thing for us here in the Maldives,” he says, “is that just two years ago I would never had a conversation in public with you like this, not about these subjects. We had to be very careful about everything we wrote, anything we said in public or private, because almost anything could be construed as a potential criticism of the government, thus possibly resulting in recrimination.
“You have to remember that our new president was a journalist turned civil rights activist who was jailed and tortured and once held in solitary confinement for 18 months for criticizing the government. And that wasn’t so long ago.”
Saffah is from one of the southern atolls but has lived in Male most of his life. A writer and editor, he’s traveled outside of the Maldives a few times, has even seen snow, in Bhutan. He volunteered full-time for six months last year to help get the new president elected. His take on the new administration is “so far, so good,” but he admits that as well as a handful of serious environmental issues – which President Mohammed Nasheed has already taken on directly, especially in the court of world opinion – there are other serious issues that need immediate attention.
“Here where we sit, the capital island of Male is one of the most crowded places on earth. One hundred thousand people live on an island just one square mile. In the last few years we have serious problems of drugs and gangs. One third of everyone under twenty-five uses heroin; we have stabbings and murders on the street are frequent. The drugs manage to sneak through the airport or the seaport. It’s becoming a dangerous place to live and the president has to do something about that.” While hopeful, he says he has “mixed opinions about the new administration,” especially concerns that sizable projects are being begun without sufficient public consultation.
My experience in island nations is that it’s hard to talk with locals about long-term environmental issues like climate change and rising seas since their temperament is to look only as far as tomorrow or next week, not decades into the future, a kind of island version of manana. Faroog agrees that it can be tricky here too. “The impacts of climate change seem very far away to them, which I understand. But we have to keep having those conversations.
“In Male we are just one meter above the sea; they are already building a new island that is two meters above sea level, which should be sufficient in a doomsday scenario. I don’t see that as a solution for Male’s problems. But when those on the outer islands hear the new president talk about creating a fund from tourist revenues to use to buy land to move us one day from the islands … they are indifferent.
“Of course rising seas are our major concern. But so are warming seas, which impact our coral, lead to more erosion, harm the fish life and impact daily life. Everything here is simple … and everything is connected.”
THE PROBLEM WITH SAND
Intertwined with concerns about rising sea levels and the potential impact on this, the lowest-lying country in the world, are worries about beach erosion. One afternoon this past week I sat on a seemingly hot, calm day and watched as small tidal waves crashed onto the sand beach. Each wave seemed to climb higher up the beach, each washing a new swath of sand off the beach from beneath the mangroves and into the sea.
On some Maldivian islands it’s estimated that four out of eight homes have already been lost to beach erosion. Careful environmental planning has not been the watchword for development here; one concern is that as the population grows and prospers there is more demand for building of homes, work places and new ports. Development requires cement, which needs sand. While efforts have been made in recent years to limit how much of sand for construction can be taken locally and how much needs to be imported, it’s a fine line in the sand here.
Both the New Scientist and Scientific American have rich reports today regarding the climate change conference that began in Copenhagen this week. The meeting is a run-up to December’s international climate talks, where officials are set to draft a successor to the Kyoto treaty to limit carbon dioxide emissions.
The highlight so far? Confirmation that the rise in the world’s sea level predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change two years ago was wrong. The IPCC estimated a rise by 2010 of eight inches to two feet; in Copenhagen the new estimate is more than three feet.
Why the new estimate? The glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica are melting faster than previously predicted.
“It is now clear that there are going to be massive flooding disasters around the globe,” said David Vaughan of the British Antarctic Survey. “Populations are shifting to the coast, which means that more and more people are going to be threatened by sea-level rises.”
Most at risk? Florida. The Netherlands. Bangladesh. And the Maldives … where I’m headed on Sunday …. and where recently-elected president Mohamed Nasheed has announced a plan to buy land elsewhere in the region – most likely Pakistan or India – to move his 386,000 citizens before sea level rise makes his island nation uninhabitable.
When I was growing up a fish dinner equaled just one thing: Fish sticks. Or, on very rare occasion, a trip to the local Howard Johnson’s for an all you can eat Friday feast of fried shrimp.
Today, thanks to an expanded palate and the notion that fish is better for you than red meat, we’ve come to expect far more. Walk the fish section of any supermarket and you find dozens of fish from all over the world laid out on the crushed ice, some caught in the wild, some farmed, often boasting tags of the faraway nations they come from. In restaurants we now expect far more than a ‘fish of the day,’ anticipating a page full of options ranging from mollusks to white fish, red fish, cephalopods and more.
So when you read headlines announcing that fisheries are fast becoming depleted – that seven out of ten of the world’s major fisheries are already over exploited, that by 2050 all of the fish species that we currently know will be gone from the seas – it should come as no big shock. The ocean is not finite, its fishes not unlimited. And a major responsibility for that change should be laid at our feet, each and every one of us fish-eaters. Our big and still-growing demand around the world is a huge part of the problem.
On Monday, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization will issue a “State of the World Fisheries and Aquaculture” report; I’ve had an advance look and what’s inside this biannual report is not too surprising: The world’s wild catch is in steep decline and fish farms are taking over as the world’s prime supplier of seafood.
The environmental group Oceana is releasing a simultaneous report called “Hungry Oceans: What Happens When the Prey Is Gone,” focusing on three threats to the smaller species of the world’s seafood supply:
– Over fishing of prey species is going unregulated, including immense stores of squid and krill. Whole schools of fish that feed tuna, whales and other long-lived animals and drive migrations are caught in nets, particularly by industrial fishing vessels.
– Fish farms are driving the need for small species, which are turned into oil or feed. They use more of the ocean’s protein than they produce. An estimated 4 to 11 pounds of prey fish are consumed to grow 1 pound of farmed salmon.
– Warming ocean temperatures in the past century – and projected to rise in the coming decades – affect sea life survival. Changes in temperature and prevailing currents may sweep away newly hatched eggs and larvae, and hurricanes can wipe out a generation of larval fish.
Oceana also reports that climate change is also interfering with the timing of life cycles. The food for seabirds and salmon, for example, must be available when they need it. If not, seabirds don’t reproduce or their offspring die, and salmon don’t survive when they get to the ocean. Oceana has lobbied for bans on commercial fishing of krill in the Antarctica, Japan and British Columbia and the Gulf of St. Lawrence in Canada.
Where do all these reports point? Moderation. Choosing wisely. Eating more vegetables.
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