Environment and development in coastal regions and in small islands

Dominica workshop papers

An Overview of Coastal Stewardship in the Maldives

Faathin Hameed and Mohamed Ali

Introduction 

The Maldives, a nation of small islands located in the middle of the Indian Ocean, consists of about 1,200 tiny coral islands of which 199 are currently inhabited. The country covers an area of 90,000 km², stretching along longitude 73° East from about 8° North to 1° South. The Maldives has a total land area of about 298 km² of which less than 10 percent is used for agriculture. 

Loss of environmental health and biological diversity due to harbour development and land reclamation, land clearance, improper waste disposal practices, coral and sand mining for construction of buildings and coastal protection structures, over-exploitation of highly valued reef resources, and the potential effect on coral reef health of increased sea temperatures due to global warming, are causes for concern. Population expansion, rapid economic progress and changing consumption patterns are major drivers of such developments. The lack of alternative income earning opportunities in the outer islands leads to dependence on exploitation of biological resources, and marine resources in particular. 

The major economic sector, tourism, is based on diving and other recreational activities that depend on the high quality and future health of the marine environment. The fisheries sector is based in pole and line tuna fishing. The fisheries sector provides the greatest direct financial benefit to rural communities through fishing or related activities such as fish processing. 

What is Coastal Stewardship? 

Given that it is composed of small low lying coral islands, the concept of ‘coast’ in the Maldives includes the total land area of each island, its surrounding lagoon extending over the reef flat to the outer edge of its reef. Inhabitant communities of individual islands regard the surrounding lagoon and reefs as an integral part of their coast. Within this ‘coastal’ area, while individual home and agriculture plots are delineated, the rest of the land area, the beach, lagoon and reef are community wealth and used by all. Access to and from beaches is not a major issue as individual land plots are set back from the beach slope. Coastal stewardship in these islands includes managing the use of resources in the coastal area. 

Beaches are customarily used for boat building and maintenance, warehousing, other economic activity, and as a source of sand for building houses. The lagoons are natural harbours for fishing boats, while the reefs provide shelter from storms. Maldivians do not traditionally eat reef fish; hence reef resources are used primarily for harvesting bait for the pole and line tuna fishery, and for the export-oriented reef fishery. 

Major issues with beach management are inappropriate construction of coastal structures such as breakwaters, jetties and groynes; sand and coral mining; cutting of beach vegetation; and the improper disposal of waste on beaches and wetland areas. 

The islands of the Maldives are subject to short-term weather and wave climate fluctuations on two time-scales: (i) the annual cycle of seasonal variations, and (ii) episodic events associated with the occurrence of either externally generated or more localised storm events. The impacts of episodic events on the islands are not predictable, but can induce considerable changes to the islands. The short and long terms changes induce gross morphological changes to islands and their beaches. Severe erosion occurs on some islands in association with natural or human-induced changes. Beach modifications and coastal ‘protection’ devices to arrest erosion such as groynes, jetties, and breakwaters impact beach dynamics and have either accelerated or extended the erosion, or have been ineffective. 

Beach protection is regarded as a community responsibility. Community members contribute in kind (such as labour, cement bags, food for the workers) to the construction and maintenance of beach protection structures such as breakwaters, groynes, seawalls and harbour protection structures. Some island communities undertake continuous monitoring of beach movements. Community activities are guided by the appointed administrative head of each inhabited island (the Island Chief or Katheeb), the Island Development Committee (IDC) and the Women’s Development Committee (WDC). The IDC and WDC consist of officials elected by the island community. Beach management and use is generally coordinated by the IDC. 

Tourism in the Maldives is built around individual resorts, each built on an uninhabited island. Regulations and codes of practice for use of the resort land area and resort construction practices promote wise use of these islands. In addition, resort operators have shown stewardship by taking the initiative to build jetties on piles, and tend to avoid building groynes for arresting erosion. 

Activities to Promote Coastal Stewardship 

Activities that promote coastal stewardship have been primarily in four categories: programmes to increase awareness; capacity building programmes; programmes to support the use of wise practices in environment management; and strengthening of the regulatory regime to promote the sustainable use of coastal resources. These are highlighted below with the use of examples.

Programmes to increase public awareness of wise practice in coastal resource management have been undertaken with the help of the media, education centres, non-formal training programmes and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These programmes target school age children through incorporation into their regular education curriculum, and adults through radio, TV, print media, and non-formal training activities through radio. Some major themes promoted include wise practices in beach management and waste disposal, promotion of the health of coral reefs, and conservation of threatened species such as turtles. 

The role of the tourism industry and NGOs in promoting coastal stewardship in the Maldives, particularly in raising public awareness about the beauty and significance of reefs and reef system is noteworthy. While being the major attraction for tourists, the reefs are important as grounds for collecting bait fish for the country’s tuna fishery. The concept of protected areas arose out of the necessity to maintain pristine dive sites and manage conflicts between resort operators and fishers. Since 1995, 25 dive sites have been protected primarily for the tourist industry. 

Capacity building programmes have targeted beach monitoring and management. Since 1995, the Environment Ministry has conducted five training courses on coastal zone management, targeting officials from the outer atolls. This course is conducted to raise awareness about environmental concerns for the islands and in particular the nature and dynamics of their beaches. Emphasis is placed on training participants in techniques of beach monitoring using compass and tape. So far, 82 personnel from 20 administrative atolls have been trained. The programme goal is to have at least one appropriately trained person on each inhabited island (199). 

Coral and sand mining have been addressed by promoting wise practices. Maldivians have mined coral for purposes such as building, making lime, or making religious structures for a long time. However, coral mining reached a critical status with a boom in the construction industry since the 1970s. In a study initiated by the government, Brown and Dunn (1988) estimated that by the year 2000, nearly 400,000m³ of coral would be mined to meet the needs in the capital island, Male, alone. Based on this study, government adopted a three-pronged approach to the problem: a) raising awareness, b) regulation and c) providing alternatives.  

Direct government intervention in regulating coral mining commenced in 1990, with a ban on mining coral from any house-reef, followed by designating particular areas for sand and coral mining by May 1992. By January 1993, government stipulated the use of hollow cement blocks instead of coral in all government buildings. To encourage a shift to other building materials, the duty on imported aggregate and cement was reduced to 15% (1990), and to 10% in 1994. With the escalating cost of using coral for construction both in Male and in the outer atolls, hollow cement blocks became a viable alternative. Small-scale operations to build these blocks boomed to cater for increasing demand. Programmes to increase the level of awareness about the significance of reefs for fisheries and tourism, and their role in the physical protection of islands, helped to reduce the demand for coral as a building material. Positive results include: since 1995, no coral has been mined for any building purposes in Male, with declining trends observed in the atolls. At the same time, sand mining from inhabited islands also decreased as island communities became aware of the negative impacts of sand mining on beach nourishment. 

Furthering the Concept of Coastal Stewardship 

Capacity building and education are two key factors that need to be used for furthering coastal stewardship. Past experience with various projects in the Maldives has shown that island communities are willing and capable of organising themselves to promote wise practices in the use of natural resources. Coastal stewardship can be promoted through capacity building programmes targeted at leading groups in these communities such as the existing IDCs/WDCs, NGOs and schools. Capacity building activities can focus on their current constraints including gaps in knowledge on best practice, assistance in organising and establishing community management programmes for beaches and reefs, resources to use in monitoring and running of this programme.  

Capacity building to facilitate the establishment of a national network for regular monitoring of beach changes needs to be undertaken. This monitoring network can be utilised to address many coastal issues of concern in the Maldives (e.g. unwise coastal modifications/development, coral and sand mining, impacts of climate change and sea level rise). The role of schools in such a network can be most effective, particularly when the activity is undertaken as an integral part of school activities. 

At an implementing level, to strengthen the efforts towards coastal management, a financial scheme can be set up to assist in the development of island level industries for constructing hollow cement blocks. With accessibility to alternative building material across the country, it would be possible to consider banning coral and sand mining altogether. 

General awareness and education can be considered as the key to realising coastal stewardship. In this regard, integrating concepts relating to coastal management in the formal education curriculum is necessary. These concepts can be incorporated into the existing curriculum for Environmental Studies at primary school level, and the Social Studies at middle school level. 

A further activity would be the use of the media to promote concepts of community responsibility and personal responsibility for wise practice in coastal management. This would be supported by actions to promote community mobilisation towards these ends; and to promote devolution of decision making to community groups entrusted with management responsibility. These activities can build on ongoing work for the establishment of community based management systems through the ongoing Integrated Reef Resources Management Programme and the Global Environment Facility Project on the Sustainable Use of Coral Reefs. 

Development of Social Contracts 

Any voluntary agreement among multiple users of a resource must be based on the mutual recognition of rights to the resource. Very often conflicts arise because one group of stakeholders do not accept the right of another group to the resource. This is the case in the Maldives with the use of coral reefs as fishing grounds and tourist dive sites. Fishermen who have traditionally used these reefs for bait fishing do not see why they must be excluded from the use of these reefs when tourism expands to that region. Tourists view fishing as destructive. Hence, a first step would be to raise the understanding of each user group of the rights of groups other than themselves. 

A next step would be to reach agreement on multiple uses of the resource in question. One way in which understanding can be raised is to promote awareness and stewardship for the environmentally friendly use of the resource by all stakeholders. This can be done by mutually agreed upon codes of practice. A further action may be to allocate areas of use or seasons of use by different groups of stakeholders. 

It is vital that any arrangement adopted be characterised by:

Further, the arrangement must include agreement on the rules of membership, defining the user groups possessing rights to the resource; decision making procedures; rules of enforcement of compliance; and dispute resolution mechanisms and processes. 

References 

Gibbs, C.J.N. and Bromley, D.W., 1989. Institutional arrangements for management of rural resources: Common-property regimes. In F. Berkes (ed.). Common property resources: Ecology and community-based sustainable development. London: Belhaven Press. 

Brown, B.E. and Dunn, R.P., 1988. The environmental impact of coral mining on coral reefs in the Maldives. Environmental Conservation 15 (2):159-166).

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