Coastal habitats of Maldives : status, trends, threats, and potential conservation strategies

Abstract

Coastal environments has been always considered as one of the significant source of natural resources for the mankind. However there is growing threats on these extremely fragile, yet richest ecosystems. Anthropogenic presence, pressures along with natural as well as climate change effects had adversely affected the wellbeing of marine ecosystems, impairing structures, functions of theses environments and compromising resource gain from marine and coastal environments. This paper would aim in describing a synopsis of the unique physical and ecological attributes of coastal ecosystem of the Maldives and analyse the main anthropogenic pressures as well as the climate related issues to these ecosystems. Coastal ecosystems of the Maldives are at risk from numerous threats with a range of impact scales from local to global level. Some of the acute stressors are those from climate variability and climate change as well as due to some unregulated fishing practices. Also, chronic stressors like coastal modifications, pollution and economic activities are serious threats to the coastal habitats of the Maldives. There are plentiful of researches available for the coral reefs of Maldives, especially with regard to the bleaching events in late1990s. However, for the mangroves, seagrasses ecosystems only a handful of studies are available. The main threats to these ecosystems are related to human settlements, infrastructure development resulting from the increasing population. In this paper we highlight the current government strategies for conservation of the habitats and also recommend some applicable ecosystem based management and conservation strategies that are practiced in other parts of the world.