Bogumil Terminski Environmentally-Induced Displacement ... - Cedem

damage to the country’s most important tourism industry. It was then decided to surround thecapital island with a concrete dam. The cost of this project, estimated at more than $60million, was entirely covered by the Japanese government. Inter-state negotiations are alsounderway regarding the future of the country’s population. Up for discussion is whether totemporarily evacuate or completely relocate the population to one of the less vulnerablecountries in the region or to Australia. If the previously observed trends do not change, thewhole area of the state will disappear beneath the ocean surface in 150-200 years. Therefore,it is necessary to take action to prevent this process (which will hopefully be made possible bythe development of new construction technologies). In 2007, UNDP launched a special expertprogram, monitoring the changes in the ocean in the region. The situation of the archipelagowas also discussed in 2009 at the World Climate Conference in Copenhagen.The future of Maldives, remaining only in the realm of speculation, shows the increasingcorrelation between environmental changes and many spheres of social life. Environmentalproblems already constitute one of the main issues in the economic forums, multilateralmeetings, and activities of international organisations. However, many researchers suggeststhat Maledives sea level is not rising. According to Nils-Axel Mörner from StockholmUniversity there is evidence of sea level fall in the last 30 years in that Indian Ocean area 102 .***Europe, in recent years, has been free from major threats to the environment. The biggestEuropean ecological disaster in recent decades was a nuclear power plant accident atChernobyl in Ukraine, on the 26th of April 1986. The town of Prypyat, population of 49000,were evacuated two days after the accident 103 . As a result of irradiation, more than 136thousand people were relocated from the surrounding areas. 104Potential causes of environmentally induced displacement in the Western hemisphere may102N.A. Mörner, M. Tooley, G. Possnert, „New perspectives for the future of Maldives”, Global and PlanetaryChange, vol. 40, no. 1-2, January 2004, pp. 177-182.103R.E. Ebel, Chernobyl and Its Aftermath. A Chronology of Events, CSIS, Washington, 1994, p. 14104S.S. Juss, International migration and global justice, 2006, p. 170; Z.A. Medvedev, The legacy of Chernobyl,1992, p. 197; P.L. Martin, S. Forbes Martin, P. Weil, Managing migration. The promise of cooperation, 2006, p.60.