UNDP MALDIVES
FOREWORD By Akiko Fujii Resident Representative of UNDP Maldives
Welcome to the fifth edition of Island Life. The first sign that we are getting close to our destination is the array of shimmering patches of blue and turquoise, visible through the plane’s windows, apparently floating on the surface of the vast ocean over which we have been flying for several hours without sight of land. Amongst these are darker areas of green, separated from the surrounding sea by dazzlingly bright haloes of golden sand. I can feel a surge of excited anticipation ripple around the cabin. Pristine beaches and multi-coloured coral reefs have made Maldives one of the most prestigious tourist destinations in the modern world. However, as I look forward to taking up my new assignment as Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme in Maldives, I am struck not just by the beauty of my home for the next few years but also its fragility. The precariousness of life led on such small islands separated from the supposed security of distant continents, subject to powerful natural forces hidden below the surface of the surrounding ocean.
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Photography by ASHWA FAHEEM / UNDP MALDIVES
This is not my first assignment in a nation known in the development field as a Small Island Developing States (SIDS). After beginning my career amongst the deserts and mountains of Pakistan and Sudan, I have spent nearly eight years experiencing the joys and tribulations of island life, first in Jamaica, in the Caribbean, and then in Fiji and other island nations in the Pacific. This experience has brought home to me just how much SIDS like Maldives are threatened by changes in the natural environment brought about by human industrial activity and modern social and economic development. This is particularly true in Maldives, where the personal and social, cultural and economic dramas of most citizens’ lives are carried on within a short walking distance from the beaches and the ocean, which are also the principal economic resource of the whole nation. Rising sea levels and temperatures, together with changing ocean currents and weather patterns, represent the greatest of clear and present dangers to this island nation.
