Maldives on CNN as an urgent experience for 2013

22 January 2013: "See them before they're gone: 5 urgent experiences for 2013" on CNN features Maldives on the list. Maldives is the only country praised for its natural beauty. Others on the list are Tokyo's Tsukiji Fish Market, Rolling Stones concert, Starbucks coffee, wild lemur in Madagascar.
cnn maldives
Oceans have risen by about eight inches since 1870, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the pace is only picking up say top climate scientists. Soil erosion causes the land area of these islands become smaller over few decades. Some islands have reported to have lost upto 100 metres in just 30 years. The residents have to erect barriers to protect sand in the endangered locations. Maldives is comprised of over 1100 islands out of which only 200 islands are residential and another 130 developed as resorts, less than 50 for other industrial purposes collectively. Rest of the islands have no one to lay protection and Maldives economy is struggling with infrastructure in inhabited islands. These inhabited islands are small populations of average 1500 people per island, and dispersed over a large area of sea. Transportation mostly means by sea or air and its costly for the residents of island nation.

Apart from 1192 officially registered islands there are many sandbanks (as seen on picture) which are unaccounted and often unnamed. The one on picture is big enough to stay above the water whole day. Smaller sandbanks get submerged into the water at high tide, everyday. Locals fear many of these small sandbanks might now have disappeared due to global warming which causes sea-level rise.

Maldives on CNN as an urgent experience for 2013

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