President of Maldives wants to relocate -- his entire country. CNN

[hahaho]

Sinking island's nationals seek new home
CNN

Male. Maldives The new president of the Maldives wants to relocate -- his entire country.

Mohamed "Anni" Nasheed, President of Maldives has a major problem. His country is sinking.

The very likely possibility that the Maldives will sink under water if the current pace of climate change keeps raising sea levels.

The Maldives is an archipelago of almost 1,200 coral islands located south-southwest of India. Most of the islands lie just 4.9 feet (1.5 meters) above sea level.

The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has forecast a rise in sea levels of at least 7.1 inches (18 cm) by the end of the century.

The island was badly hit by the December 2004 tsunami, which killed an estimated 273,800 people and left thousands missing across Asia and Africa.

In the Maldives itself, at least 82 people were killed and 26 unaccounted for from a population just over 270,000, according to the Maldives Disaster Management Center. Sixty-nine islands were completely flooded and a further 30 islands half flooded.

The capital of Male was also flooded, although sea walls protected it from further devastation. The government has calculated that creating a similar barrier around the rest of the country would cost too much. Video Watch Maldives president vow to save the nation. »

And so the tourist nation, which has white sandy beaches that lure well-heeled Westerners, wants to set aside some of the $1 billion a year it receives from tourism and spend that money on buying a new homeland.

"We will invest in land," Nasheed said. "We do not want to end up in refugee tents if the worst happens."

Nasheed's government has said that it has broached the idea with several countries and found them to be "receptive."

Lands owned by Sri Lanka and India are possibilities because the countries have similar cultures, cuisine and climate as the Maldives. Australia is also being considered because of the vast unoccupied land it owns.
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Sinking Island Highlights Effects of Climate Change

Documentaries explore lives in a warmer world

Sinking island
This man ponders his fate as he looks out to Huene, an island in the Carteret bisected by the sea 20 years ago.


"Sun Come Up" is the story of the Carteret Islands off the coast of Papua New Guinea, where filmmaker Jennifer Redfearn says Islanders have had no choice but to move to higher ground.

"We documented some of the destruction that is happening from rising sea levels, more frequent storm surges, from the lack of fresh water sources and how the sea has contaminated some of their gardening land."

Ursula Rakova grew up on the islands. "In those times the sea wasn't as cruel as it is today, she says. By 2015 her homeland is expected to be under water." She now heads the relocation effort for 3,000 people.
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Sinking Tuvalu

SOON Tuvalu will be lost forever. Barely 23 years since it gained independence, Tuvalu, a tiny island country in the Pacific Ocean midway between Hawaii and Australia, faces the threat of being lost to the sea. Global warming and the consequent rise of the sea level no longer seem to be just theories.

The Tuvaluan government fears that the nine atolls spread over some 26 square kilometres that constitute the country will ultimately go under the sea. But it has denied reports of a plan for the imminent evacuation of the 11,000 citizens.

Fearing a rise in the sea level the Tuvaluan government appealed last year to Australia and New Zealand to provide permanent homes for the people. While Australia refused to take in Tuvaluans, New Zealand is considering the matter.

A SELF-GOVERNING member of the British Commonwealth, Tuvalu was admitted to the United Nations as its 189th member last year. Located 1,000 km north of Fiji, it is the fourth smallest country in terms of area (after Vatican City, Monaco and Nauru) and the second smallest in terms of population (after Vatican City). The highest point in Tuvalu is 4.6 metres above sea level.
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[Leongsam]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...wing-not-shrinking-due-to-climate-change.html

Pacific islands 'growing not shrinking' due to climate change

Low-lying Pacific islands regarded as "poster child" examples of the threat from

rising sea levels are expanding not sinking, a new study has revealed.
An aerial view shows Tarawa, Kiribati, South Pacific Photo: REUTERS
By Paul Chapman in Wellington
7:00AM BST 03 Jun 2010

Scientists have been surprised by the findings, which show that some islands have grown by almost one-third over the past 60 years. Among the island chains to have increased in land area are Tuvalu and neighbouring Kiribati, both of which attracted attention at last year's Copenhagen climate summit.

In the study, researchers compared aerial photographs and high-resolution satellite images of 27 islands taken since the 1950s. Only four islands, mostly uninhabited, had decreased in area despite local sea level rises of almost five inches in that time, while 23 stayed the same or grew. Seven islands in Tuvalu grew, one by 30 per cent, although the study did not include the most populous island.

In Kiribati, the three of the most densely populated islands, Betio, Bairiki and Nanikai, also grew by between 12.5 and 30 per cent. Professor Paul Kench, of Auckland University, who co-authored the study with Dr Arthur Webb, a Fiji-based expert on coastal processes, said the study challenged the view that the islands were sinking as a result of global warming.
"Eighty per cent of the islands we've looked at have either remained about the same or, in fact, got larger. "Some have got dramatically larger," he said.

"We've now got evidence the physical foundations of these islands will still be there in 100 years," he told New Scientist magazine. He said the study suggested the islands had a natural ability to respond to rising seas by accumulating coral debris from the outlying reefs that surround them.
"It has long been thought that as the sea level goes up, islands will sit there and drown. But they won't," Professor Kench said.

The trend is largely explained by the fact that the islands comprise mostly coral debris eroded from encircling reefs, which is pushed up on to the islands by wind and waves. Because coral is a living organism, it continues to grow and establish itself in its new home, so the process becomes continuous. Land reclamation and deposition of other sediment also contribute to the process.

"These islands are so low lying that in extreme events waves crash straight over the top of them," Professor Kench said. "In doing that they transport sediment from the beach or adjacent reef platform and they throw it on to
the top of the island." But the two scientists warn that people living on the islands still face serious challenges from climate change, particularly if the pace of sea level rises were to overtake that of sediment build-up. The fresh groundwater that sustains villagers and their crops could be destroyed. "The land may be there but will they still be able to support human habitation?" he said.

Naomi Thirobaux, a student from Kiribati who has studied the islands for a PhD, said no one should be lulled into thinking erosion and inundation were not taking their toll on the islands. "In a populated place, people can't move back or inland because there's hardly any place to move into,
so that's quite dramatic," she said.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2011

 

[Papsmearer]

This PM of the Maldives must not be keeping up with the times. Does he not know that sinkieland is giving out PRs and citizenships like toilet paper? For $1 billion a year, Old Goat will personally order SQ to fly all their Airbus 380 there to pick up the maldivians, and even give this PM a cabinet post. They will be treated like royalty in sinkieland, much better than native born are treated.

 

[borom]

The people from Maldives are already in Sillipore-only thing is you may not recognise them as they look like Indians/Pakistanis.They are mainly muslims with the women usually wearing tudungs.

Is this group openly encouraged to migrate here?

 

[hahaho]

The people from Maldives are already in Sillipore-only thing is you may not recognise them as they look like Indians/Pakistanis.They are mainly muslims with the women usually wearing tudungs.

Is this group openly encouraged to migrate here?

Vanishing islands in Pacific