Ms Shazleen AHMED
Director General
Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage
Maldives

Good morning. First of all, I would like to thank you for giving this opportunity to me and our State Minister, Mr Mohamed THORIQ, to join this Forum.

The Maldives is an island nation situated in the Indian Ocean, located 600 kilometres south of the Indian Continent. Here is our story. It's the Kalhu Vakaru story. It's a new chapter, conserving and protecting the Maldivian heritage.

Kalhu Vakaru Miskiy is a coral stone mosque built in Malé by the Royal Highness Sultan Hassan Nooradeen Iskandhar in 1789. The mosque had been moved to three places, and was finally placed within the Sultan Park in 1979. The mosque was dismantled in 2016 after the Government had decided to move it to another island in order to free space for an artificial snow park. In protest against the regime's decision to dismantle the mosque, the then Deputy Minister in charge of Department of Heritage and the current Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Miss Yumna MAUMOON, resigned from the Government in 2016. The current Minister of Environment, Dr Hussain Rasheed HASSAN and the current Minister of State for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Mr Mohamed THORIQ filed a court case asking for a state order to stop the mosque from being moved. The Kalhu Vakaru Mosque became an icon for the protection and conservation of the unique Maldivian heritage. For the first time in Maldives, a separate Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage was formed under the current Government while the safe reassembly of Kalhu Vakaru Miskiy became a key pledge of the Government.

Heritage conservation in the Maldives was not seen as an important work until recent times. Although some archaeological work has been done in the past, not much attention was given to aftercare or strategic and sustainable conservation. One of the misfortunate examples is the archaeological work done in Kuruhinna Tharaagandu on Kaashidhoo Island between 1996 and 1998. Archaeological evidence showed that those remains were Buddhist complex of 1 600-1 700 years old. Skeletons of 900-1 000 years old were also found on the site. Although it was a very successful archaeological project, no sustainable conservation and protection strategy was developed at the time. This leads to deterioration of the different components of this site.

Conservation, restoration and preservation being done today are learnt from experience such as the archaeological work in Kuruhinna Tharaagandu and projects such as the ongoing reassembly of Kalhu Vakaru Miskiy. Attention is being given to adopt proper conservation and preservation techniques. An aftercare management plan is already in place for this project. Our National Centre for Cultural Heritage (NCCH) is working to devise management plans for other heritage sites and buildings as well.

While coral stone mosques are unique to the Maldives and some of those mosques have been listed on the UNESCO tentative list of world heritage, the NCCH under the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Heritage is trying to find technical and financial support to conserve and preserve those heritage sites in a sustainable manner. While the Maldives is incredibly rich in terms of culture and heritage, not much has been done to source this as a way of sustainable protection of the heritage. Our vision is to expand the cultural tourism sector and generate income from the heritage sites and communities, which will help the sites to self-finance their conservation works. However, we do need finance and technical support to start and run those conservation projects.

As I bring an end to our presentation, I once again thank you for inviting the Maldives for this valuable opportunity. Let's all join hand in hand for the development of the cultural sector.

Thank you.