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       The Maldives, located in the midst of the Indian Ocean, is an island state comprised exclusively of coral reef islands. The economic development is taking its toll on the Maldivian environment, and reef users carry out many unsustainable and detrimental activities. The Maldivian economy relies heavily on the two sectors of tourism and fisheries, which seem to sometimes have conflicting interests. However, the cause of concern as to the fate of this country seems to be a global issue. The recent 11th International Coral Reef symposium concluded that coral reefs could be the first entire ecosystem to disappear under human pressure and global warming.
 
     All coral reef of the world are concerned by this threats, however Maldives are a very particular case because everything in the country relies on the reef.Reef health is therefore a necessary condition to the very existence of the islands, which is not guaranteed even then under the forecast sea level rise scenarios. Climate change is expected to decrease drastically the return period of extreme events (Hay, 2006) such as high sea surface temperature, which have caused the 1998 mass mortality event due to coral bleaching.
 
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