By Our Correspondent in Male’

A Friends of Live Earth music show was held in the Maldives on Saturday as the tiny island nation joined other countries in the world in a united campaign to address the global climate crisis. However, the show Jamming for the Islands was not very impressive and failed to deliver key environmental messages to the public.

The Maldives, with its low lying islands about a meter higher than sea level, is one most the vulnerable countries facing threats of global warming and climate change. Scientists warn that the small island nation could disappear from the face of the earth, if sea level rises as predicted.

There is little that the Maldives can do to combat global warming or climate change. However, the country is already faced with several environmental problems which need to be addressed locally. Even though the organizers of the Jamming for the Islands show said that the theme of the show was ‘Think Globally – Act Locally’, there were only few instances when the show highlighted the key environmental problems in the country.

Almost all inhabited islands in the Maldives are facing the problem of contaminated groundwater because untreated sewage seeps into the aquifer. Only few islands such as the capital Male’ has a sewerage system in place. The population is also unable to solve the problem of garbage accumulation. Undesirable methods of garbage disposal such as burning and throwing them on beaches create further environmental problems. Increased consumerism means the people of the Maldives produce more garbage, most of which is non-biodegradable. Reefs in the country are under threat from marine pollution while certain marine species are on the verge of depletion because of overexploitation. The mangrove ecosystems in the Maldives are under threat while beaches in the Maldives are eroding due to human-made modifications to the coastline.

Saturday’s music show failed to deliver key messages about these issues to the audience which comprised of mostly young people, who will make crucial decisions about the environment in the future. Despite several flyers littering the streets of Male’ the night before the show, the turnout was not very high compared to some of this year’s more successful shows.

A press release issued by the Foreign Ministry said a number of activities would be held to raise environmental awareness.

By teaming up with Live Earth, the Maldives is determined to highlight to the world the very real threat posed to its future, and at the same time to make a clear statement about the country’s commitment to help tackle the problem. As a concrete demonstration of that commitment, at 10pm local time on the evening of the concert (5pm GMT) all lights in the Maldives will be turned off for three minutes in order to encourage people to save energy and to illustrate the threat posed by sea-level rise (three minutes is the amount of time that the Maldives was covered by sea-water during the Asian Tsunami).

Jamming for the Islands will be an all-day free-of-charge event featuring an array of local Maldivian musicians. During the concert, environmental messages will be displayed on giant screens. The screens will also broadcast live video feeds from the seven main Live Earth concerts including a key note speech by Al Gore, former US Vice-President, climate change campaigner and co-organiser of Live Earth. Maldivian musicians have even grouped together to produce a theme song for the event which will be played at various times during the day.

The theme song was played when the show started and after intermissions. However, environmental messages were rarely displayed on ‘giant screens’, if they were giant at all. Lights in the Maldives were also not turned off at 10pm as promised by the Foreign Ministry.
It is true that the Maldives has already experienced how vulnerable it is if there is a significant rise of the sea level or a change to the climate. In 1998 corals in the reefs of the popular tourist paradise were bleached from an El Nino. The December 2006 tsunami was a warning about more disasters to come in the event of a rise in sea level. This year a number of islands in the Maldives were severely flooded because of abnormal weather patterns, storm surges and tidal waves.

While the Maldives needs the support and cooperation of the international community to address the problems caused by global phenomena, several people in the country are dismayed by the lack of commitment by the government to address local environmental issues. The government is keen to highlight the vulnerable position of the Maldives in international conferences and IPCC meetings but when it comes to solving the environmental problems in its own backyard, it remains tightlipped.

Jamming for the Islands show will be remembered for its poor lighting and sound. There were good bands and the crowd enjoyed the likes of 1984. The band Nothnegal was also impressive with their music bordering on black metal. The crowd also enjoyed Traphic Jam, whose vocalist Kayano has earned a reputation for his ability to reach out to the crowd with the witty lyrics and great vocals. The show was telecasted live by Television Maldives but the state-owned TV station felt it was inappropriate to show the performance of former inmate Kayano’s band and temporarily cut the transmission after two songs from Traphic Jam. Reliable sources have informed us that there was strong opposition from the government circles to let Traphic Jam perform in the show.

The show was organized with strong support from the government’s National Center for the Arts (NCA). However, it was Foreign Minister Dr Ahmed Shaheed who received most credit for the show. Our sources say that different parties in the government tried to own up the show before it was held and that Dr Shaheed received undue credit for the show. The role of Jessica Kate Griffiths, who works for the Foreign Minister’s NGO Open Society, as a presenter of the show made it easy for Dr Shaheed to steal the show, according to our sources. In a preparatory meeting, Jessica had suggested not to invite Traphic Jam to perform in the show.

It is evident that with too many internal disputes among organizers, Jamming for the Islands did not become the show of the year. However, its major shortfall is the failure to communicate basic environmental messages to the audience.