Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 9-13
More than 100,000 people live in Male on this 7/10 square mile island.
© mediacolor' s/Alamy
official family planning policy means intense population
pressure. As rice, the dietary staple, is not grown in the
islands, food shortages can be problematic.
Maldives has an active merchant shipping fleet, but
fishing employs almost 25 percent of the islanders.
Coconut wood ships have been mechanized, leading to
depletion of fish stocks. Additional refrigeration and
canning facilities are being built with aid from the World
Bank and Japan. The Japanese have long participated in
Maldives' fishing industry .
In the industrial sector, small-scale cottage indus-
tries are dominated by women who weave rope and mats
from reeds and coconut and palm fiber. Women also
work in Hong Kong-owned apparel factories at the former
British air base on Gan.
The most important source of foreign exchange is
tourism. As most Maldivians are uneducated, Sri Lankans,
Indians, and other groups fill all but the menial jobs.
T Tourist resorts, deliberately isolated from settlements, offer
gambling, alcohol, and Thai “massage girls.” It is govern-
ment policy to keep Maldivians away from Western influ-
ences in order to protect local Islamic values. The majority
of tourists are from Germany , Italy , Britain, and Japan.
Unfortunately , the seasonal employment pattern for the
tourism industry coincides with that of the fishing industry:
from April to October during the northeast monsoon.
While economic circumstances have improved for
some, Maldives remains one of the world' s poorest and
most isolated nations. Even so, extended restoration and
education programs as well as an emergency medical res-
cue service among outlying islands have been estab-
lished. An adult literacy rate of 97 percent has been
achieved. Also, the government continues its efforts to
improve water supplies through desalinization and
purification. Maldives' government also has a 10-year
carbon-neutral strategy . The idea is to eliminate the use
of fossil fuels by turning away from the consumption of
oil tor enewable power production by 2020.
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