Pollution // The hidden face of Maldives

Hello there! Sorry, it's been a long time since last post, but I've been busy... ehm... surfing. But what is a surf blog without surfing, eh? 

Spring swells have been consistent lately and blessed us with some longboard clean peelers and offshore winds. What else could we ask for? 

But today I'm here to talk about some important issues: water and beach pollution and marine litter. Some time ago I was talking with a surfer friend of mine who had recently come back from a surf trip to Maldives. A dream come true! But as usual, often Paradise has a dark face, hidden under a layer of golden sparkles.

Looking at his pictures, I could understand that even in this dreamy place something was wrong: a beautiful tropical landscape was the background of piles and piles of trash that had been dumped on local beaches like no-one cared. But we do and today Andrea is here to show us the hidden face of Maldives and explain what we should do to prevent what's going on in there.

Luxury and beauty of exotic "paradises", destinations of our surf trips, often hide strong environmental degradation and pollution. It is common to judge local people as uncivilized and careless of the environment, but I suppose the situation is dictated by something much stronger and vast. We are used to judge people from our point of view, our experience, and our western knowledge - A wider perspective than the one of a Maldivian who was born on Thulusdoo island and never traveled further than to Malè in his life.

I think things have to go beyond the usual commonplace. Much of the degradation is related to plastic and to the Westernization. These populations are experiencing now the tourist boom as well as consumerism. Until recently their waste was made of scraps of fish, fruit skins, and all things taken from nature and restored to nature in a sustainable cycle. This cycle became unsustainable when we brought plastic in this land - something they don't know how to handle and dump as they've always done with all the other waste.

With that being said, I don't want to justify pollution by local people... I just want to say that we shouldn't complain on the fact a single Maldivian is not aware of the environmental issue, whilst Western multinational corporations build factories and import products into large numbers, unreservedly using emerging market as money machines.

I guess our task as tourists, surfers and ocean-lovers could be to start on our own and be the first to raise awareness among the local population. We should explain them environmental issues related to pollution, being able to show them alternative solutions (I know, good luck with that!), and give the good example first.

Text and surfer: Andrea Lamorte 
Photography: courtesy of Andrea Lamorte, surf pictures: framegrabs from Jacopo Cosmelli's video