Goodbye Paradise

Reporter: Liz Hayes
Producer: Stephen Rice

A few years ago, Liz Hayes took a trip to paradise, an idyllic little place called the Maldives. When she stepped outside her room it was onto a fabulous beach, a long stretch of pure white sand.

If she tried that on her latest visit she'd have ended up in the ocean. If ever you needed proof that global warming exists, it's right there. The Maldives is drowning.

On the latest estimates, they'll be almost entirely underwater by the end of the century. But the Maldivians won't go down without a fight. They're taking drastic action to save their island nation.

And, if all else fails, there's a fall-back plan. Pack up and re-settle here in Australia.

PICTURE GALLERY: Idyllic island nation drowning

Read Liz Hayes's blog here

Story contacts:

For further information about Charlie Veron or his new book, A Reef in Time: The Great Barrier Reef from Beginning to End, go to:
www.coralreefresearch.org

Full transcript:

LIZ HAYES: The Maldives is the Indian Ocean's jewel in the crown. Playground to the rich and the very rich. Sun-drenched beaches and white sand. For years the locals have had it all - fresh fish you could literally drag home, fruit and vegetables in abundance and plenty of tourist dollars. So what could possibly go wrong? Well, this.

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: The science is fairly certain and the sea is rising and the Maldives will probably sink in some time to come.

LIZ HAYES: Global warming, climate change, call it what you will, according to the experts will cause sea levels to rise and rise by about one metre come the end of the century. That may not seem like much but that's about as high above sea level as the Maldives are today. That's about the height that I'm standing at now. A rise of one metre would see the Maldives literally go under - the first country to be drowned because of global warming. It is unthinkable. Here they are 1,192 islands scattered like pearls across the sea. Breathtakingly beautiful, but like so many other low-lying countries around the world, dangerously vulnerable. The Maldives has already had a taste of nature at its worst when hit by the Boxing Day tsunami. It swallowed up whole islands and killed more than 80 people. A disaster made worse because the Maldives' natural defences are already down - its coral reefs an early victim of global warming.

CHARLIE VERON: These islands exist because of the coral reefs, without the coral reefs they wouldn't exist at all, they'd just erode away very quickly.

LIZ HAYES: Charlie Veron is an Australian scientist on a mission. He's the world authority on coral reefs and he's come to the Maldives to find out whether these tiny, fragile islands can be saved.

CHARLIE VERON: For literally millions of years the corals have never been exposed to the temperatures they're being exposed to now, and they're simply not designed to take it.

LIZ HAYES: These islands rely on their coral reefs for protection, a kind of front line defence against erosion. But now they're being broken down - literally bleached to death in hot sea water.

CHARLIE VERON: We're in for a change in climate like we've never imagined before. We're going to be witnessing whole cities being destroyed through the sea level rise. LIZ HAYES: And in Australia, what can we expect?

CHARLIE VERON: We can expect the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef for sure.

LIZ HAYES: For the people of the Maldives, though, this nightmare is already upon them. Azeez, this was originally the island, huh?

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: That's right, yes. This was the beach earlier, all this area that you see here this was beach, and all this area has now been eroded over the last 6-7 years.

LIZ HAYES: Azeez is a marine biologist who works at the Banyan Tree Resort - an island that's literally being washed away.

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: I think we have lost about 10-12 metres of beach here from this side. LIZ HAYES: Extraordinary.

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: So, it's a constant fight against nature for us now.

LIZ HAYES: For me, this is quite a sight. I visited eight years ago, and I walked right here, on what was then dry, hot sand. This - I would normally be standing dry.

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: That's right, yes.

LIZ HAYES: Sand is being pumped back onto the island to stop it whittling away. It's a daily battle. And how old are these guys? Two weeks?

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: About two weeks old, yes.

LIZ HAYES: But it's not only about saving beaches. BanyAn Tree breeds turtles and the loss of the island would also see them homeless.

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: This little one was born here and it will come back to this island after 20-30 years to lay the eggs. So within this 20-30 years, if this island disappears or is eroded, this little animal cannot find the place to lay eggs.

LIZ HAYES: It's an ecological balancing act. Azeez and his colleagues are even trying to create artificial reefs growing coral on steel rods by zapping them with a very low dose of electricity. So this is this what it looks like?

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: Yes, this is a 5-year-old piece from our experiment. What you see in the centre is the steel rod and surrounding it is the calcium carbonate. It is a small micro ecosystem. There's plenty of fish living in between and new corals have come and settled.

CHARLIE VERON: It won't make a difference, I'm afraid, it's a shame. It's very worthwhile, good scientific experiment going on but in terms of reality these coral are, well they are doomed and there's no other way of looking at it.

LIZ HAYES: It doesn't give Charlie Veron any pleasure to deliver the bad news.

CHARLIE VERON: It's very sad. They've done nothing to bring this on themselves. We Australians have more than any other country per capita. And we're seeing now what the western world has imposed on these people and it's sad and it's so unjust.

LIZ HAYES: And wrong.

CHARLIE VERON: And it's very wrong.

LIZ HAYES: You have become a victim, have you not, of what the rest of the world is doing?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: I've never blamed others for my own situation.

LIZ HAYES: Are you just being nice?

PRESIDENT MOHAMMED NASHEED: No, I'm being realistic. For the new President of the Maldives, 36-year-old Mohamed Nasheed, it's a seemingly impossible task.

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: We are the infantry and we are the frontline state of this, and therefore, we have a moral responsibility and obligation on ourselves, to let others know what is happening.

LIZ HAYES: If ever there was a role model for survival it's President Nasheed. He's the Maldives' Nelson Mandela, elected only six months ago after years of jail and torture at the hands of the dictator who ruled this island paradise over the past 30 years. When you were in prison, fighting for your own survival did you ever think that you would be the president of a country, fighting for its survival?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: No, I didn't. We don't have much time to waste. We really have to sort ourselves out in the next 10 years.

LIZ HAYES: And if we don't?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, we all perish, we all die. I think it's fairly obvious.

LIZ HAYES: This is certainly the only country I have been to where every hotel provides life jackets alongside the bathrobes. But in the Maldives, it's no joke. The Government has been forced to build a massive sea wall around the capital, Male, to literally hold back the tide. And on a nearby island, a new city is being created and to fortify it against the effects of global warming the island level has been raised an extra metre.

YASSER: Male is just about one meter and this island's about two meters above sea level. So, it's believed that after even Male goes off it will be there for at least for a few years after that.

LIZ HAYES: Very nice. This is the garden?

WAYNE WADSWORTH: Yeah, the idea is to grow as much produce as possible ourselves.

LIZ HAYES: Even though the Maldives makes a minuscule contribution to carbon emissions, it's punching above its weight in the fight against global warming.

WAYNE WADSWORTH: It's a little like a supermarket in a garden.

LIZ HAYES: Australian environmentalist Wayne Wadsworth has spent the last 18 months helping the Soneva Fushi resort become carbon neutral.

WAYNE WADSWORTH: So you can come and pick different things from the garden and the kitchen staff come in often and pick things freshly, you can actually hear them chopping up your dinner tonight!

LIZ HAYES: I hope so! The resort grows its own food, bottles its own water, recycles just about everything and has even developed an air conditioning system utilising deep sea water. But will any of this count? Or is it that in this newlywed paradise, the honeymoon is well and truly over. If the scientists are right, it may already be too late to save the Maldives. And if that's the case, its brash new President has a back-up plan. An extraordinary scheme to re-locate his entire nation. He's already stashing money away to buy land in a foreign country. And the place he's been eyeing off, well, its 6,000 kilometres that way - Australia. And if all else fails is there a particular part of Australia you'd like to put down roots?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, you would want me to say this wouldn't you?

LIZ HAYES: I would.

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Well, I mean we should go up north where the beaches are. We are sea creatures, almost.

LIZ HAYES: So the top end of Australia would suit you fine?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: Would suit us fine. We are already sea creatures and we can't just suddenly become land creatures any more.

LIZ HAYES: But for most Maldivians, their lives so intimately bound with the sea, the idea of pulling up stumps is impossible to imagine.

AZEEZ ABDUL HAKEEM: For me personally, I will not leave this country I will not leave this country. I will be the last man standing.

LIZ HAYES: The President would much prefer to stay put, too. He's even ready to think about a future nation built entirely over the water, as some of the resorts are now.

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: The resorts have over-water rooms and we can have over-water blocks of flats and you've seen 'Waterworld'?

LIZ HAYES: I have. (laughs) Is that what you're seeing?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: No but look, a lot of marginal, let's say fringe thinking, is no longer fringe.

LIZ HAYES: 'Waterworld' is of course, a science fiction scenario - Hollywood's vision of a world drowned by global warming. But if you believe Charlie Veron, the future of the planet could be just as bleak.

CHARLIE VERON: I think the big unknown to most people is the extent of the catastrophe. It is going to be severe beyond imagination. And I've got two young children and for me this thought is just horrible cause this is the world they're going to live in.

LIZ HAYES: We have just 10 years to cut our carbon emissions enough to avoid this disaster, says Charlie Veron. 10 years to save the Maldives and ultimately, ourselves.

CHARLIE VERON: The future does look bleak but I have to say that if humans, if we get our act together, it doesn't have to go down this doomsday path, we can turn it around. That, I think, is a heartening thought.

LIZ HAYES: And for this tiny nation's prisoner-turned-President, this is just one more battle that has to be won.

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: I believe that there will come a tipping point in peoples' minds. Humanity will not just extinct itself.

LIZ HAYES: You're the ultimate optimist aren't you?

PRESIDENT MOHAMED NASHEED: I don't want to give up this fight. We'll fight it and we will change the world.