Read the full statement in English
5 June 2026
On the occasion of World Environment Day 2026, Ecocare Maldives and Transparency Maldives issue this joint statement with a profound sense of urgency, endorsed by civil society organisations across the country.
The natural systems upon which our nation’s survival depends on; the coral reefs, mangroves, marine ecosystems, and protected islands, are being systematically stripped of legal protection and face an unprecedented, catastrophic threat. We cannot afford to stay silent.
While we recognize the economic complexities of governing a Small Island Developing State, the actions of the successive administrations represent an unprecedented, institutionalized assault on our environment. Through the abolishment of the semi-autonomous Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the legalization of destructive activities in protected areas, the reopening of the shark fishery, and the fast-tracking of opaque mega-development and reclamation projects (such as those threatening Villimalé and the Addu UNESCO Biosphere Reserve), the government has replaced long-term planning with politically driven ecocide.
We call on the Maldivian State authorities to take the following immediate actions:
- Restore genuine institutional independence to environmental oversight — including an independent governing board for the ERA with substantive civil society and scientific representation, not merely advisory status.
- Repeal or suspend the 6th Amendment to EIA Regulation 2012/R/27 and its companion amendments removing EIA requirements for road construction, housing, tree removal, and resort structures, pending full public and parliamentary review.
- Reinstate full EIA requirements and public consultation obligations for all development projects in, near, or affecting ecologically sensitive areas, including protected areas, marine protected areas, UNESCO-designated zones, and reef systems.
- Halt the Moolekede Fishimathi road extension and restore the Eidhigali Kilhi and Koattey Protected Area boundaries to their pre-May 2026 configuration, pending independent review and genuine public consultation.
- Enforce a strict policy of zero-loss for Villimalé’s irreplaceable Funavaa tree grove and old-growth urban canopy, and legally commit to redirecting all major infrastructure and housing developments away from fragile ecosystems to more appropriate, already-reclaimed, or underutilized locations.
- Reinstate the complete shark fishing ban and reaffirm the Maldives’ Shark Sanctuary designation in both law and practice.
- Publish a full inventory of all reclaimed land, its utilisation status, and justification for any new reclamation projects before proceeding with further reclamation.
- Recover all islands, lagoons and coral reefs leased through corrupt processes and transactions, such as the MMPRC scandal, and bring all the perpetrators, as well as the institutions that were negligent and complicit, to justice.
- Guarantee meaningful public participation in all environmental decision-making processes, including consultation periods that cannot be waived under “priority” designations, and require transparent documentation of how stakeholder input has influenced final decisions.
- Ensure proactive public access to environmental information by mandating the timely publication of Environmental Impact Assessments, regulatory justifications, project approvals, land utilisation data, and all related procurement and financing details in an accessible manner — including the regular publication and updating of the State of the Environment Report, which has not been publicly updated for nearly a decade.
- Investigate and prosecute documented permit violations at active reclamation and dredging sites, and publish the outcomes of ERA enforcement actions.
- Ensure full protection for environmental human rights defenders and commit to zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or threats against advocates, researchers, and journalists covering environmental issues.
We stand in unconditional solidarity with environmental defenders and organisations across the country, standing up to protect and defend our environment.
We are a nation of islands. There is no Maldives without its reefs, its mangroves, and its protected coastlines. Every reef that is dredged, every grove that is felled, every protected boundary that is redrawn in the dark is an act committed against the people who live here, the communities that depend on a living ocean, and every generation that has not yet been born into these waters. What is being lost now cannot be recovered. What is being decided now will outlast every political term.
———— ENDS ————–
For more information, contact:
- Maeed Mohamed Zahir, Advocacy Director, ECOCARE Maldives: +960 7873692, [email protected]
- Azza Mohamed, Governance Manager, Transparency Maldives, +960 7782817, [email protected]
Note: A detailed briefing note with background information is attached with this statement.
Endorsed by the following Civil Society Organizations and Community Groups:
- Architects Association Maldives (AAM)
- Association for Democracy in the Maldives
- Atoll Marine Conservation Center
- Aware society
- Barnacles
- BeLeaf
- Blue Guild Foundation
- Care for Paws
- Clean Maldives
- Farufoshi
- Global Youth Biodiversity Network (GYBN) Maldives
- Kethi Araa (Hanimaadhoo)
- Maldives Authentic Crafts Cooperative Society (MACCS)
- Maldives Coral Institute
- Maldives Health Professionals Union
- Maldives Journalists Association
- Maldives Local Council Association (MLCA)
- Miyaru Programme
- Naifaru Juvenile
- Ocean Warriors Institute
- Project Thimaaveshi
- Public Interest Law Center
- Reefscapers Foundation
- Ripple
- Save the Beach Maldives
- SEAD Initiative (Science • Explore • Act • Discover)
- Secret Paradise Maldives
- Soneva Conservation & Sustainability Maldives (SCSM)
- The Eco Organization
- ThiVeLaa (Laamu Atoll)
- Veshi Saafu
- WINGS
- Zero Waste Maldives
Briefing Note: The Systematic Dismantling of Environmental Protection in the Maldives.
What has been done – A Catalogue of Dismantlement
Permitting Activities in Protected Areas
In April 2024, the Environment Ministry gazetted amendments to the Regulation Governing Reclamation and Dredging of Islands and Lagoons, authorising sand borrowing, dredging, and land reclamation within areas previously protected under the Environmental Protection and Preservation Act (Law 4/93). The original 2013 regulations had established clear buffer zones — 100 metres from lagoon edges to island shores, 500 metres inside lagoons from outer walls, 50 metres from shorelines inside lagoons, and 200 metres from any protected or sensitive area. While the 200-metre buffer itself had technically been introduced in a 2014 amendment, the April 2024 change went further by lowering the approval authority required to override it: where previously the full cabinet had to sanction exceptions, a cabinet committee — specifically President Muizzu’s Economic Council — now suffices. No scientific rationale was published, no public consultation was conducted.
The timing drew sharp criticism. UN Special Rapporteur Dr. David R. Boyd, who conducted a country visit to the Maldives from 16 to 25 April 2024, stated explicitly that this regulatory regression was inconsistent with the government’s obligation to respect the right to a healthy environment. The amendments arrived at the worst possible moment: the 2023–2024 global coral bleaching event was the most extensive and intense ever recorded, driving Maldivian sea surface temperatures to a record 31.5°C and causing over 40% live coral cover loss in central atolls. By May 2024, the EPA was forced to issue an emergency suspension of all major coastal development activities — including dredging and reclamation — to minimise further stress on reefs already in crisis. The contradiction was stark: the executive had dismantled the very buffer zones designed to protect sensitive marine areas just weeks before the same agency was compelled to halt the activities those buffers existed to restrain.
Abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency
On 12 August 2025, Presidential Directive No. 14/2025 abolished the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), established in 2008 as a semi-autonomous body with civil society representation on its governing board, and replaced it with the Environmental Regulatory Authority (ERA), placed directly under ministerial control. The semi-independent governing board was dissolved.
This was borne out by precedent; in 2017, then-Environment Minister Thoriq Ibrahim, who returned to the same role under President Muizzu, had overridden the EPA’s decision to reject the Kulhudhuffushi airport development, destroying part of the island’s mangrove system. In 2020, another minister similarly overrode the EPA’s rejection of the Noonu Maafaru airport runway expansion. The minister had always held effective veto power; the August 2025 directive simply made that control official and unreviewable.
Transparency Maldives issued a formal press statement warning that fast-tracking EIAs for priority projects risked corruption, inequitable impacts, and the systematic exclusion of vulnerable communities from environmental decision-making.
President Solih pledged in 2019 to make the EPA fully independent. It never happened. A Human Rights Watch investigation confirmed in 2023 that the agency “lacks independent enforcement authority”.
Fast-Tracking Approvals, Removing Safeguards
The 6th Amendment to Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulation 2012/R/27 allows the Cabinet or Minister to designate any project as a “priority” and bypass minimum review timelines, public consultation periods, and scientific review. A companion amendment removed the EIA requirement entirely for road construction, major housing developments, large-scale tree removal, and certain resort structures.Both amendments include a 42-month sunset clause — expiring at precisely the end of the current presidential term in November 2028. The alignment of the period with a single political term, rather than evidence-based review cycle of long term development planning raises serious questions with regards to the institutional basis of the amendments. Decisions made within this window will have permanent ecological consequences that outlast the policy period itself.
The Corruption Perceptions Index 2024 flagged the Maldives for declining scores. Transparency Maldives noted that manipulated Environmental Impact Assessments, destruction of reefs, lack of prior consultation with affected communities and weak public oversight enables politically driven developments that sideline environmental concerns resulting in lower CPI scores.
The Tree Grab: Stripping Islands of Their Vegetation
The large-scale removal of trees and mature vegetation from Maldivian islands has a documented history and a public name: #MvTreeGrab. Beginning in 2018 and 2019, environmental activists and journalists exposed a systematic pattern of coconut palms and mature trees being uprooted from inhabited and uninhabited islands and shipped by barge to newly developed resort islands built on reclaimed land. Hundreds of trees were removed from Mendhoo island in Laamu Atoll and transported to a resort under development in a reclaimed lagoon near Malé, with EPA approval. In Vaavu Atoll, palms were taken from the uninhabited island of Hulhidhoo and replanted on Aarah, an island under resort development that previously had roughly 20 coconut palms but was left with a thick forest.
The regulatory framework that should have prevented this was already compromised. A permit was required before removing more than 10 trees, and a full environmental assessment for more than 200 — but a 2014 amendment had already allowed cabinet to approve tree clearance for “development projects,” with a nominal requirement of six replanted trees for every one removed, a condition the EPA was not publicly monitoring.
In 2022, a new tree protection regulation was enacted requiring EPA approval and local council witnessing for public tree removal, prohibiting removal of beach trees, trees within 20 metres inland, trees in protected areas, and all trees older than 50 years, with heavy fines for violations. In practice, enforcement remained largely absent. As recently as October 2025, the ERA announced it was investigating reports that over 500 palm trees had been illegally removed from Lhaimagu island in Shaviyani Atoll for resort landscaping. The island council was fined. The trees did not return.
What changed in 2025 was not the practice but the law. The EIA regulation amendments enacted alongside the ERA’s creation quietly exempted from environmental assessment the very activities that had driven #MvTreeGrab. Road construction projects were made fully exempt from EIA requirements. The removal of large numbers of trees — previously requiring environmental assessment — was removed from the mandatory EIA list entirely. Tree trimming and removal for maintenance or alleged public hazard were also exempted. Major housing developments and buildings above 10 storeys were placed in the category of projects requiring no EIA at all. The regulatory framework now actively enables what it once nominally restrained. The Villimalé situation — where authorities pressure the felling of mature street trees under the pretext of infrastructure damage rather than applying available non-destructive root-control alternatives — is not an isolated incident. It is the visible local expression of a national policy environment in which the destruction of mature vegetation has been quietly decriminalised by amendment.
The Shark Sanctuary in Name Only
In 2010, the Maldives banned shark fisheries, becoming the Indian Ocean’s only shark sanctuary and strengthening its conservation brand and adding tourism appeal.
On 31 October 2025, the government approved regulations to reopen gulper shark fishing from 1 November 2025. Gulper sharks are among the slowest-reproducing species on earth, taking over 20 years to mature and producing just one or two pups every few years. When this fishery previously operated, populations collapsed by an estimated 97% within a few years. There is no scientific evidence of recovery.
A coalition of 60 local and international organisations and 50 scientists issued an urgent letter calling on the President to halt the plan. More than 19,000 signatories globally petitioned against it. The government proceeded regardless.
“The Maldives is the only shark sanctuary in the Indian Ocean. But this sanctuary has effectively been undermined.” — Blue Marine Foundation, 2025
Villimalé: The Last Green Neighbourhood – #SaveFunaVaa
The Greater Malé Area hosts roughly 41% of the Maldivian population in one of the world’s most densely packed urban settings. Villimalé (K. Vilingili) stands as its final green sanctuary, retaining a unique car-free design, traditional island character, and an irreplaceable, legally protected old-growth Funavaa tree grove and vegetation found nowhere else in the Greater Male’ Area. Instead of preserving this vital natural heritage, the state has targeted the island for aggressive, poorly planned urban expansions.
The most alarming of these is a January 2026 contract awarded to Rasheed Carpentry Construction, under a Bank of Maldives affordable housing scheme, to construct three 17-storey towers containing 300 flats within and adjacent to the protected Funavaa grove. This directly violates Article 3 of the Regulation on the Protection and Preservation of Vegetation, enacted under Law 4/93, Article 4, making the destruction not just ecologically devastating but outright unlawful. Compounding this, a separate stand of mature trees faces clearing for a Chinese-funded 100-bed hospital, the incoming Thilamalé Bridge threatens to end the island’s car-free status through unregulated vehicle access, and municipal authorities continue pressuring the removal of mature street trees over infrastructure concerns — despite the availability of modern, non-destructive root-control alternatives.
Public outrage has driven resistance across democratic, legislative, and judicial channels. A parliamentary e-petition (EPT202600010) filed by resident Abdulla Hussain Rasheed was formally accepted by the People’s Majlis on 23 March 2026, calling for a traffic ban on bridge entry to the island core, eco-friendly hospital transit solutions, mandated tree preservation through modern maintenance methods, and legally required project redesigns that protect existing green canopy. Legislative pressure from Galolhu North MP Mohamed Ibrahim and the Association of Maldivian Planners prompted the Ministry of Housing to partially adjust one tower’s footprint — but residents and civil society firmly reject this as an inadequate half-measure, as the grove remains fragmented and the Ministry has reserved the right to fell further trees wherever it deems necessary.
With the foundational threat of overdevelopment unresolved, environmental defenders escalated to the judiciary on 21 April 2026, filing a Constitutional public interest case in the Supreme Court of the Maldives. The case challenges the executive’s disregard for environmental law and seeks a binding legal precedent to halt state-sponsored destruction of irreplaceable public natural heritage. The community’s demand remains unambiguous: Villimalé’s green legacy must be fully protected, not partially spared.
“These projects are not being carried out with the intent to solve housing or healthcare for the people. Destroying the last remaining old-growth trees in Villimalé while unused reclaimed land exists across the Greater Malé area is not development planning — it is the permanent erasure of irreplaceable natural heritage.” — #SaveFunaVaa Open Letter, April 2026
The Addu Nature Park: A UNESCO Site Under Threat
In May 2026, Project ThimaaVeshi, supported by 24 civil society organisations and local tourism actors, issued an open letter to President Muizzu documenting the endangerment of Addu Nature Park — a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 2020. A road extension project through the Moolekede Fishimathi mangrove in Hithadhoo had been fast-tracked as a “priority” development over sustained community objection. On 18 May 2026, the authorities extended the project boundary by redrawing the protected area boundaries of the Eidhigali Kilhi and Koattey Protected Area without public consultation.
The open letter noted that redrawing directly conflicts with UNESCO’s criteria and guiding principles for Biosphere Reserves, including the Seville Strategy requirement that core protected areas be effectively buffered and places Addu’s UNESCO Biosphere Reserve status at risk
This is not a single incident. Addu had already suffered large-scale reclamation across multiple islands in 2023. The reclaimed land remains largely unutilised while its natural buffers continue to be targeted.
The Reclamation That Serves No Purpose
Perhaps the most troubling finding documented by the Maldives Independent (October 2025) is this: at least 52 land reclamation projects have been carried out since 2007, and satellite imagery analysis shows that a majority of the expensive reclaimed land sits unused, overgrown with grass, some barren for years. New projects are launched before existing land is utilised.
The pattern is most stark in Gaaf Dhaal Thinadhoo, where 53 hectares reclaimed in 2017 remains almost entirely empty — yet a project to add 14.3 more hectares was underway in 2025. During a single week of atoll tours ahead of local council elections in 2025, President Muizzu inaugurated or committed reclamation for several islands: 27.32 hectares to double the size of Dhangethi; 9.8 hectares in Kun’burudhoo; and a new lagoon reclamation near Mahibadhoo. None of these projects were preceded by published utilisation assessments of existing reclaimed land.
The jaw-dropping scale of this crisis was laid bare in a May 2026 study published in the Maldives Journal of Engineering and Technology (MJET) by researchers Hussain Ziyath, Eden Rigo, and Fathimath Shanna. Their comprehensive spatial analysis of community-use projects across all 189 inhabited islands between 2000 and 2024 revealed that the Maldives has added more than 4,000 hectares of reclaimed land. The study explicitly notes that this scale is exceptional, vastly exceeding the combined total reclaimed across the entire continents of Africa and Europe since 2000. Crucially, the study confirms a structural failure in governance: rather than following coherent national planning, reclamation has suffered from fragmented development, duplication of major infrastructure within the same atolls, and a severe misalignment with actual demographic realities and decentralization policies.
The governance implications are equally serious. Projects of this scale are typically advanced through opaque approval processes, discretionary decision-making, and limited public oversight, creating conditions in which accountability is weakened and corporate conflicts of interest are more likely to arise. Further investigations connect this environmental plunder directly to a shadowy, lucrative luxury real estate economy. The state’s rollout of the “Maldives Pearl Residence” golden visa program, designed by Henley & Partners – a controversial international firm heavily criticized by global corruption watchdogs like the OCCRP – incentivizes the creation of “state-of-the-art properties with the utmost privacy and exclusivity” targeting ultra-high-net-worth foreign buyers. This policy environment ensures that the destruction of pristine marine areas is no longer just an electoral stunt, but a highly commercialized commodity, where our natural defense structures are permanently sacrificed to fund high-end real estate ventures.
The MMPRC grand corruption scandal in the Maldives linked to the leasing of islands, lagoons and reefs for tourism development specifically bypassing competitive bidding processes has led to massive embezzlement of state funds, severely damaging delicate marine ecosystems through unchecked land reclamation and dredging. In this environment, the economic returns generated by one of the world’s most lucrative tourism industries accrue disproportionately to a narrow set of politically connected private actors and, through corrupt procurement and discretionary approvals, to those within government who control access to the country’s most valuable ecosystems. Given the well documented impact of mass tourism on coral reefs, the virtually unregulated expansion of tourism facilitated by corrupt practices is also causing lasting damage to the local environment, from tree grabbing to declining coral health. The result is a system in which the Maldivian environment is being consumed to generate private profit, while the public finances the destruction and bears the long-term consequences of it.
These developmental projects tied to land reclamation are politically driven and framed as engines of economic growth but offer limited value to Maldivian citizens while contributing to escalating public debt and long-term fiscal and ecological vulnerability. This is not long term development planning. It is politically driven expansion, where land reclamation tied to mega-development projects becomes a visible instrument of electoral performance. These practices are carried out at the permanent cost of living reef ecosystems.
In May 2026, the Environmental Regulatory Authority acknowledged receiving a surge of complaints about permit violations at active dredging sites, including work proceeding without silt screens or bund walls, sand extraction outside approved borrow areas, and dredging near residential house reefs. The ERA has issued statements. The machinery has not stopped.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has stated explicitly that land reclamation and coastal structures “negatively impact coastal and marine ecosystems, including reefs and mangroves, which compromise the protection services that they deliver to island communities.” The World Bank’s 2024 Roadmap for Fostering Coral Reef Resilience in the Maldives explicitly recommends avoiding dredging near areas of exceptional ecological importance and climate refugia. These recommendations are being ignored.
A Pattern Across Administrations: Now Institutionalised
It is important to note that ministerial override of environmental decisions is not new to the current administration. The Kulhudhuffushi mangrove veto occurred in 2017. The Noonu Maafaru runway override occurred in 2020. The Addu reclamation approval came in 2022. During the 2015 Yameen administration, the tourism ministry directly seized the EPA’s regulatory powers for tourist developments. President Solih pledged independence for the EPA in 2019. It was never delivered.
Running parallel to this pattern is a deepening culture of secrecy and the systematic erosion of public participation in environmental decision-making. Across successive administrations, decisions of significant ecological consequence — from regulatory amendments to protected area boundary changes — have been made without prior consultation, without transparent publication of supporting evidence, and without meaningful opportunity for public participation and scrutiny.
What distinguishes the current administration is not the existence of this pattern but its depth and formalisation. The EPA has been abolished in law. Protected area boundaries have been redrawn by executive order. Fast-track provisions have been written into regulation. The current administration has not continued a reluctant practice. It has institutionalised, deepened, and legalised it.