Oaga Art Resort Seeks Clearance for Scaled-Back Shore Protection on Maaranfushi
A fifth addendum to the resort’s environmental impact assessment drops a larger coastal scheme approved under an earlier addendum in favour of smaller breakwater and groyne changes. The regulator is taking public comments until 5 November.
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The Environmental Regulatory Authority (ERA) is taking public comments on a plan to rework the shore protection around Maaranfushi, the Kaafu Atoll island operated as Oaga Art Resort. The regulator announced the consultation on X on Wednesday, 28 October, and set a deadline of 5 November.
The plan is a fifth addendum to the resort’s environmental impact assessment (EIA), filed as ERA project PRJ-2026-256. The proponent is Radhun Resorts and Investments, which a Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation approval names as the resort’s head lessee. Consultant Ahmed Zahid of Sandcays prepared the report, dated October 2026.
No decision has been made. The report says the key permit for the works would be ERA’s decision statement on the addendum. ERA asks for comments by email to eca@era.gov.mv, quoting the report’s name or link. The report and application are in a public folder linked from the post.
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A third addendum, which the report says was approved in September 2025, set out a larger set of coastal changes. The consultant writes that those works were not carried out “as it involved too many adjustments”. The new proposal rests instead on what the report calls observations and experimentation by the resort’s management.
It has four parts. The nearshore breakwaters on the southeast would stay, with small revetments and groyne heads added on shore to hold sand. A fish-tail groyne approved for the northwest would become a nearshore breakwater. Breakwaters at the north end would be reoriented, and one would be added and others adjusted near the jetty on the northwest side.
The third addendum expected to need about 2,000 tonnes of additional rock boulders. The report says the new changes need “much less”, and the onshore structures less than half of what was proposed then.
According to the report, most components were completed during experimentation after the third addendum was approved, and the rest would take about two months after EIA approval. A work schedule appended to it lists coastal works from 21 October to 22 December 2026. The tourism ministry’s conditional approval of the plan, dated 23 September 2026, says physical works shall begin once environmental clearance has been obtained.
The report says the work will be done mostly by hand while the resort stays open, with work areas closed off and night work avoided. Extra boulders would arrive by spud barge. The project brief filed with the application lists a flat-top barge and a small excavator.
The consultant concludes that the changes are not expected to have major negative environmental impacts. Because the work is done from inside the existing structures, the report says, no coral would be affected beyond some sedimentation from excavator movement. It rates the aesthetic impact as moderate.
Proposed safeguards include working at low tide in calm weather, limiting machinery on the reef flat and monitoring water quality. General guidance from the Maldives Marine Research Institute, reproduced in the report, strongly recommends halting work if coral bleaching alerts exceed level 1. The consultant recommends monitoring for at least two years after the works, under an annual programme costed at US$3,990, not counting the logistics of monitoring visits.
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Maaranfushi is one of five islands reclaimed in Maadhunifaru lagoon, on the north-western rim of North Malé Atoll. The report says the outer reef on the east and southeast was initially about 50 metres from the planned beach, but sand movement during reclamation and shore protection has brought the beach even closer to it.
The east side has eroded severely during the northeast monsoon, the report says, and sand has been lost where tombolos formed behind a long nearshore breakwater. It says the eastern beach has improved over the past year with simple onshore structures, but that geobags, higher breakwaters and extra revetments and groynes tried in recent years have not made the eastern shoreline more stable.
The resort announced on 27 July that it would reopen on 1 August after a brief operational hiatus and an island-wide refresh, and that new overwater villas would follow later this year. Its accommodation page lists four overwater villa and suite categories as coming soon. The pages for two of them give stay dates from November 2026.
