HRDs, Climate Change and a Just Transition

My name is Aishath Liusha, I live in Gan, Laamu Atoll, in the Maldives. I have been an agricultural farmer for eleven years now. I am most happy when I am in my farm with my plants and crops.

Shelter, income, quality education, healthcare and safe, nutritious food are basic human rights for all. But in the Maldives the majority of people are still struggling to get access to these very basic human rights despite living in a world-renowned luxury destination. Unregulated commercial farming has damaged local food resilience, while indifference to the loss of native plants is a recent alarm for me, as a passionate environmental conservationist from the Maldives.

Maldives used to be a very predicable two monsoon nation, with the southwest monsoon (wet season) and northeast monsoon (dry season). Since I started farming eleven years back, I have experienced the weather as unpredictable and have seen farm loss going from bad to worse as a result of the continuous rain and floods. At other times, the weather is around 30 to 40 degrees celsius, making it difficult to work in hot weather or causing a shortage of adequate ground water.

Since farming is my livelihood, I have been trying to find solutions at my level by advocating for climate action and saving local farms for years now, but it’s one of the lowest priorities of the government. Unlike tourism in the Maldives, our voices are unheard in our country. While local islands are being eroded at rapid speed during the rainy season, the land to live on and farm is also is under threat. The stress of unpredictable seasons and losing crops also affects our mental health. I have been adapting by keeping a plant nursery, but until those plants bear fruits and vegetables we won’t have an income from farming.

On my farm, I am trying to adapt. I am experimenting with traditional, resilient crop varieties which our ancestors grew like chilli, papaya, snake gourds, pumpkin and moringa etc. I practice rainwater harvesting to avoid using high ph groundwater, which is less suitable for farming. I compost and use organic methods to keep my soil healthy, because healthy soil holds water and nutrients better against drought and floods, but due to the lack of nutrients in the coral sand, we are also using chemical fertilizer to grow produce. I am trying to show that we can still grow food here, even as things change. Twenty years ago, the seasons were predictable. We knew when the rain would come, when to plant, when to harvest. But year by year, that predictability vanished. The patterns became chaotic. I saw my crops fail not because of any mistakes I made, but because the weather is unpredictable now.

As an activist, I speak at local island councils. I work with other farmers and fishermen to share what we are seeing and also advocate on social media about the threats and urgent need for the protection of agricultural and marine life. I tell our stories to anyone who will listen, because the world needs to know that climate change is not a future problem—it is happening now. It has a face, and it is the face of a Maldivian farmer worrying about her next harvest.

What motivates me? What motivates me to farm is that it helps me to have a balanced peaceful life and harmony with nature. It also gives me financial freedom from corporate and political slavery. It gives me strength to speak the truth and face the powerful politicians and corporate greed that is destroying my beautiful country. Farming for me has become synonymous with self-freedom.

I didn’t choose to become a climate activist; it chose me.
You cannot be a farmer and not be a witness to climate change.

My happiest childhood memory is running barefoot at age of six on the white sandy beaches of my mother’s island of Guraidhoo, Thaa Atoll. Ironically, I later came to know it was a tragedy that my mother sent me and my younger sister to my grandparents as my mother, a single parent, was struggling to look after five children in Malé City with no child support. Hence, my happy memory was short, as I was brought back to Malé City for education with my younger sister after only a year.

At the early age of 17, after high school, I started working in a resort and kept developing my skills and knowledge before later working in the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture, Ministry of Health and Ministry of Environment, as well as with local companies. Unknowingly, I was preparing for the day I would work in UNDP Maldives as an assistant in a project called Low Emission Climate Resilient Island Development, which allowed me to learn about climate action and adaptation. While on the job, my husband and I learnt farming from YouTube videos and local farmers and within three years become full-time farmers.

I heard the same stories about climate change from the fishermen: depletion of bait fish and tuna stocks, the currents changing; the fish moving to different places. We were all seeing the same thing. Staying silent was not an option. If I didn’t speak up for the land that feeds us, who would? My activism grew directly from the soil of my farm. My advocacy is becoming stronger with school awareness and training sessions on agricultural farming, small volunteer groups, networks of local and international environmentalists and HRD mentors.

I have been volunteering in several local NGOs for about 11 years now, and am a founding member of the Laamu Farmers Development Cooperative Society and Global Citizen Society, Maldives. I also volunteer with the Save Maldives Campaign, documenting environmental destruction in the country.

Currently, I am trying to finish my Sharia and Law degree to bring about accountability for the man-made destruction caused by unnecessary land reclamation projects and mass corruption by politicians and state-owned corporations.

There are many challenges, but top of the list are:

• Ad hoc state policies: the State-owned Agro National Corporation has got into contract farming, with ceiling prices for local farm produce and selling produce on at the highest price to consumers. Neither the farmer nor consumers are benefitting. In recent weeks, the government announced a new policy to import locally growing fruits and vegetables, which will destroy local farmers.
• Being heard: Sometimes people think a farmer is just a farmer. Getting a seat at the table where decisions are made is impossible. They see us as victims of climate change, not as people with local solutions. Donors with limited budgets find it hard to travel to local farmers and end up listening to government narratives and indirectly contributing to the sabotage of local farmers by funding state corporations.
• Local Indifference: Not everyone here wants to talk about climate change. Some people think it’s a problem for the government or the world to solve. Convincing people to change their ways, even for their own good, is a slow and sometimes lonely process.
• Financial Support: Adapting to climate smart farming is expensive. Building rainwater harvesting systems, solar irrigations, finding resilient seeds, protecting land from erosion—it all costs money that a simple farmer like me doesn’t have.

I would like locals to reflect on times like natural disasters such as tsunamis, covid and the currently on-going global wars. I ask from public to help us to build a resilient country by buying from local farmers and fishermen and prioritizing locally made goods. For the world in general I would like to say: produce and buy locally to empower local economies, which would also reduce your carbon footprint so that countries like the Maldives can be saved from the worsening climate crisis.

Aishath Liusha

Originally posted: UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders.
Non-commercially reproduced at SaveMaldives, unedited and in entirety as part of CC3.0.
Thanks to Aishath Liusha (@Ahsuil).