Many people have taken a great interest in a particular area called the Maldives. The Maldives is a group of islands that is located in the Indian Ocean, just off the tip of India. The Maldives is a desired tropical destination which deeply invests millions of dollars in attempt to cater to the republic's tourism (Zubair et al. 2011). Even though the Maldives Republic boasts of an excellent tourist destination, there has been a problem that keeps getting worse. The islands are threatened by the constant sea level changes as it is rising. If the sea level keeps on rising, it may potentially destroy the islands and cause them to cease to exist ultimately displacing many of the residents that inhabit the islands.
The Maldives is a low-lying island nation that is located roughly the equator in the Indian Ocean (Khan et al. 2002). Khan (2002) describes the size of the island by saying that the total land area of these islands is only 300 km squared with a maximum height of about 3 meters above sea level. Even the smallest of sea level rises, such as a 1 m rise in sea level, could have possible disastrous effects on the Maldives (Khan et al. 2002). The Republic of Maldives consists of about 1190 small islands (Khan et al. 2002). Even though the total area of land of the Maldives is relatively small, the republic's tourism industry has been on a rise ever since the 1970's (Zubair et al. 2011).
Zubair (2011) explained that ever since the 1970's, tourism has played a tremendously huge role in the Maldives. The reason why tourism in the Maldives has been so successful is because of the republic's growth potential and also the ability to create a high amount of new jobs (Zubair et al. 2011). Tourism in the Maldives has made a large contrib...
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.... Climate Refugees. Economic and Political Weekly, 44(23), 1-7. Retrieved December 1, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/i40010981
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The effect of sea level rising is especially challenging for the population that lives in low-lying coastal communities, such as Miami Beach. The city is surrounded by sea. Miami Beach is linked to the mainland city of Miami through causeways, and it is an area that allocates much of the wealth from its art decoration and former celebrity playground standing. For them, funding does not seem to be a problem. However, the threat they are facing, cannot be entirely solved by money. Its sea level rising is at 9 millimeters a year, while there is only 3 millimeters on global average acceleration. If the sea level rises for 6 feet by 2100, Miami Beach city will get swallowed. When referring about sea level rising phenomenon, Miami Beach always acts as a ground zero example. Government leaders around the world are waiting to see how this rich living laboratory experiment place can avoid drowning. Below is a figure showing the sea level rising between 1900 and 2020 in Miami and Miami Beach
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Maldives is a collection of about 1000 islands with a combined mass of 115 square miles occupied by approximately 330,000 people, which is in the Indian Ocean (Hannah, J. A., Muller, P. O., & Nijman, J., 2012). The rise in the sea level is a concern that all of Maldives shares, the islands only set eight feet above sea level at its highest point. Any rise in the sea level would disrupt the country’s economic balance. The rising sea level threatens the beachfront resorts for which most of Maldives economy depends on. Thousands of people every year travel to Maldives to...
Coral reefs and the species that dwell in them offer a wide variety of economic and environmental benefits. In 2003, researchers estimated the global economic value of coral reefs to be $29.8 billion. That value stems from the wealth of ecosystem services reefs provide. Whether through tourism or fishing, roughly 30 million people worldwide are “largely dependent on … reefs for their livelihoods.” Reef-related tourism benefits at least 94 countries, 23 of which derive more than 15 percent of their gross domestic product from it. And a “healthy, well-managed reef in the Indian or Pacific Oceans can yield between five and fifteen tons of seafood per square kilometer per year in perpetuity.”
All over the world indigenous communities are faced with an array of new problems, though the public continues to gain insight into the lives of these people they continue to be marginalized in the global arena as well. The Pacific Islands are an entity far removed from the minds of most westerners. The primary focus of any political discourse within the United States places most emphasis on Australia and New Zealand ignoring the smaller less politically salient states. However, it is these smaller islands that will bare the brunt of one huge problem in the future, global warming. For the purpose of this paper I will ignore the polemics of global warming and not hypothesize whether or not it actually has any permanent adverse effects on the ecosystems of the world or whether or not it is cyclical. Instead, I will focus on the evidence already documented within the Pacific Island states, evidence which lends strong support to the notion that the earth is getting warmer and the oceans are rising. For the people of the lowland Pacific Islands it doesn’t matter if the current warming is a temporary trend that will reverse itself in a few centuries, they will have to deal with it on a much more short-term basis. The ocean has already begun to change and for the people of the Pacific Islands that is a major concern, it could be catastrophic if left unattended. The prospect of rising waters in the oceans has a transcendent effect on the Pacific Islands. Not only will the oceans rise and the seas become more torrent, their very cultures could be uprooted and their modes of existence forever changed.
Barker, V., Giles, H., Hajek, C., Ota, H., Noels, K., Lim, T-S., & Somera, L. (2008).
According to the ‘World Tourism Organization’ (UNWTO), the tourism industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world, as it is estimated that by the year 2020, 7.8 billion people (roughly a quarter of the world’s population) will embark on a foreign trip (Bennett & Gebhardt 15). The Caribbean is said to be the most economically dependent on this industry, as the ‘Caribbean Tourism Organisation’ states that the industry forms the “economic backbone of most countries in the Region”(“Caribbean Tourism Industry” 1). The implications for tourism’s affect on the region have arisen and have prompted further research into this matter. Since the 1970’s, research regarding tourism in the Caribbean has attempted to determine the social, cultural, environmental, and economic impacts of tourism. Much of the research has found that there are in fact many negative adverse effects, and Jackson’s article asserts that, “Governments often commit money and other resources to support the growth and development of tourism and often turn a blind eye to its negative impacts” (574).