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FrancoAngeli Journals

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No. 4 (2025)

Landing on the mangroves. The impact of an airport on coconut rope makers’ lives in the Maldives

  • Beatrice Ruggeri
  • Alice Salimbeni
  • Stefano Malatesta
  • Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/rgioa4-2025oa21684
Submitted
dicembre 15, 2025
Published
2026-01-12

Abstract

In this article, we analyze the construction of an airport on the island of Kulhudhuffushi, in the north of the Maldives, and the consequent destruction of one of the largest mangrove forests in the country as an emblematic example of the uneven and gendered effects of infrastructure policy. The replacement of the mangrove swamp with the airport has compromised the lives of the island’s women coir rope makers, who relied on the wetland for their work. This has led to economic loss and the destabilization of women’s infrastructure. Through a feminist approach and a focus on the everyday experience, we highlight how, in this case, the infrastructural development had irreversibly transformed island ecologies and socio-economic dynamics, strengthening pre-existing vulnerabilities.

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