Cabinet Submerges to Save the Country

If we cannot save Maldives today we can’t save rest of the world tomorrow said the President of Maldives during a press briefing after the world’s first ever underwater cabinet meeting. On October 17^th at an island called Girifushi 14 members of the cabinet met underwater and endorsed a statement that is to be carried to the leaders of the world meeting at Copenhagen this December. The statement read

“SOS from the frontline: Climate change is happening and it threatens the rights and security of everyone on Earth. With less than one degree of global warming, the glaciers are melting, the ice sheets collapsing and low lying areas in danger of being swamped. We must unite in a global effort to halt further temperature rises, by slashing carbon dioxide emissions to safe level of 350 parts per million.

Endorsed by the Cabinet of Republic of Maldives on 17th of October 2009”

President of Maldives endorsing a stement from underwater

The cabinet meeting wasn’t a small feat. Behind it all, planning and carrying out every last detail was the Divers Association of Maldives (DAM). For the past 2 months DAM members have been planning this event as part of an action for the 350 campaign. A team of local scuba diving professionals worked day and night to make this a success. On the parts of filming and broadcasting DAM was joined by veteran director Tedry Niyaz and members of Fahudh Studio.

Everything was well choreographed. Which cabinet member is diving with whom? When do they move? How to move? Waiting for the queue to start was an almost breath holding moment. And when the time came it went on like it was a well rehearsed play despite the cabinet members being fairly new to being underwater and the President and Vice President not being present in the previous day’s rehearsal. The President emerged from the blue and swam between 2 Flags of Maldives and took his seat. With the sound of a shaker the meeting began. And the rest was history!