Living in the Maldives means living in one of two worlds. You either belong to the capital, Malé, a micro-Manhattan in the Indian Ocean, or you are out in “the islands,” among the quietest and most remote villages this side of the Arctic tundra. The outer islands are steadily depopulating, as the appeal of making a life through tuna fishing and coconut farming along their crushed-coral seashores shrinks. The splendid isolation may be what attracts visitors, but it seems incompatible with islanders’ aspirations in a nation modernized by global tourism. As Maldivians give up on island life, the government feels compelled to keep building up Malé, the country’s one real city. But Malé is already pressed up hard against the limits of human habitation. If more Maldivians are going to move there, its physical structure will need to be radically reworked. In the meantime, it is sprawling outward wherever it can: The government is surrounding Malé with sea bridges to artificial islands packed with housing projects financed by China and India. On Jan. 22, President Mohamed Muizzu announced his otherworldly vision for an undersea tunnel between Malé proper and a land-reclamation project where Chinese investors will help build 65,000 housing units on what is now barely a sandbar. Mr. Muizzu, a civil engineer by training, said the tunnel would “provide beautiful views of the sea” as commuters passed through it. Humay Ghafoor, a researcher who campaigns against environmental degradation, said that “nobody does any assessments” before commissioning “massive infrastructure” projects. This allows an airport, for instance, to be built over a mangrove, destroying a whole island’s freshwater supply. The Maldives consists of a thousand islands stretched along a 550-mile axis, each one a bit of exposed coral that grew from the rims of a prehistoric range of undersea volcanoes. These form rings called atolls — a word that comes to English from the native Dhivehi language. Most of the 188 inhabited islands have fewer than 1,000 residents. The resorts — those airy villas floating over turquoise seas — are all on technically “uninhabited” islands. The guests are foreign, and most of the staff is, too, mainly from India and Bangladesh. In some ways, the resorts are like offshore oil rigs, pumping out nearly all of the country’s income. By design, they are divorced from Maldivian culture and abstracted from their South Asian location. The typical inhabited island is likewise rich in sunshine and…
2024-04-05 23:01:35
Source from www.nytimes.com
