The rising ocean threatens to sink low-lying Maldives

MALE, Maldives - Ever since the Bodu Raalhu (Big Wave) lashed their homes a decade ago, residents of this lagoon nation have fought against the day when the sea swallows their habitat: 1,192 coral atolls strung like a necklace on the Indian Ocean.

In the struggle to survive the doomsday effect of global warming that some scientists believe will flood their archipelago within a generation, the islanders jettisoned ancient traditions and adopted protective measures and an environmental policy other countries may soon have to copy.

The efforts of the Maldives Islands to save one of the world's most spectacular beach and diving playgrounds, an area with hundreds of resorts perched on atolls have become a rallying cry for those who believe the planet is ailing.

The curse, they claim, is global warming, causing sea levels to rise. Effects of the phenomenon remain uncertain, and experts differ over how long it might take before the Maldives, the world's flattest nation, vanishes into the sea. Estimates vary from 15 to 100 years.

In his crammed Ecocare office in this village-capital, squeezed onto a 2-mile-square island so small locals joke that car owners fill their tanks just once a year, Mohamed Zahir believes time is running out.

"It has started already," said the ecologist. "Ninety percent of our atolls suffer already from erosion. In grandfather's time, the sea each year took away some land at one end and put it back at the other end. Now the sea just takes. It doesn't give anything back. The little land we have is vanishing."

Like many others, he blames the increase in atmosphere temperatures caused by fossil-fuel gases that act as a blanket around the world, storing heat from the sun that would otherwise be radiated back into space. This global warming could result in a significant rise of sea levels. Some low-lying countries could be swamped and climatic changes could cause hurricanes, floods and deserts.

Rather than wait for a miracle or for an accord among industrialized nations such as the United States to reduce the use of fossil fuels, the Maldives have taken their own emergency measures.

The capital is now partly ringed by a 6-foot concrete sea barrier known as the Great Wall of Male.

The government is raising the 4-mile-square artificial island of Hulhumale, which is a 10-minute speedboat ride from Male. The idea is that Hulhumale could become a modern Noah's Ark for the Maldives' 280,000 inhabitants if the feared flood comes. At 6 feet above sea level, Hulhumale is already higher than the average atoll in this flat nation.

When completed, Hulhumale will house the majority of Male's 120,000 residents, as well as a cluster of small industries and commercial centers. But most important, Hulhumale will be 2 feet higher than the capital in a part of the world where a few inches stand between survival and submersion.

The headmen of the 202 inhabited atolls are building seawalls and breakwaters and dumping expensive imported granite and cement blocks offshore to diminish the ravages of the waves.

Dried coral, found in abundance, was the traditional building material for homes. Now its use is banned to prevent further depletion of the coral reefs that act as natural breakwaters for the atolls.

Dive guides warn tourists - who outnumber the natives 2 to 1 every year - they may not touch the docile fish population or step on or touch the delicate corals. Resorts are built according to stringent regulations and policed to make sure they comply.

Environment Minister Ismail Shafeeu has imposed a ban on sand and coral harvesting, threatening offenders with a fine of up to $1 million. No building permits are granted near the seashore, to prevent further erosion. Ships that run aground on reefs are punished with huge fines. Tourist resorts, offered only a 35-year lease, must have their own waste- and sewage-disposal systems and leave the atoll as they found it: usually barren, perhaps with the proverbial single palm tree on the beach.

The islanders either take the prospect of losing their homes with a grain of salt or with trepidation.

"Its not a good feeling to know you're sinking," said shopkeeper Ahmed Hussain. "I often wonder, should I build the extension to my grocery or will it be a waste of money?"

Such anxiety is hardly shared by the hundreds of foreign investors who have built resorts on some of the atolls. Some are small, virtual Gardens of Eden where a day's bed and board costs $700. Others are prefabricated cabins, one long row that can accommodate 200 guests on tiny islands where diesel generators run day and night to supply electricity and power for the massive desalination plants.

The tourist boom, mainly from Europe, has made the natives disproportionately wealthy in this poor South Asian region.

With an annual 9 percent growth rate, tourism has made the islanders wealthy, although the Maldives are no longer known as "The Money Isles," a label from ancient times when precious cowrie shells served as an international currency.

Today, the cowrie shells serve as barriers against the rising sea in a little nation that has become acutely eco-conscious but still does not want to live without modern polluting luxuries, such as cars and power generators.

Along the narrow winding alleys of Male, outside whitewashed coral-wall houses and below new shiny office blocks, daily traffic jams are common, though no automobile on Male ever makes it out of second gear.

"Owning a car has become a status symbol even if you move much faster by bicycle, scooter or on foot." said Ali Rafeeq, editor of the Haveeru Daily. "The locals just want to live the way people live in the rest of the world."