GURAIDHOO, Maldives — From the foyer of his small guesthouse some 100 feet from the shoreline, Mohamed Nizar, 52, was wondering how long his business could remain viable¹.

马尔代夫古拉德胡——小客栈的门厅距海岸线大约有100英尺（约合30米），52岁的默罕默德·尼扎尔(Mohamed Nizar)站在那里，不知道自己的生意还能维持多久。

Last year, during an unusually nasty storm, water snaked through the narrow streets of Guraidhoo, a small island in the Maldives, pooling around the floor of the three-room house and chasing away guests.

去年，在一场异常强烈的暴风雨中，水漫到了马尔代夫古拉德胡岛狭窄的街道上，淹没了这座三居室房屋的地板，让客人没法住。

Down along the beach, the picture was even worse. Erosion of the shore has become so severe, he said, that the owner of a neighboring guesthouse stakes plastic jerrycans in the sand to curb² flooding during sea swells³.

沿着海滩下行，情况更糟。他说，岸边的侵蚀已经变得非常严重，附近一家客栈的老板在沙子里筑起了扁平的塑料容器，防止涨潮的时候淹水。

“What is the lagoon⁴ now used to be the football field on this island,” Mr. Nizar said on a recent afternoon. “I have to leave this guesthouse if it keeps eroding⁵. I am sure of it.”

“现在这个岛上的泻湖原来是个足球场。”尼扎尔在不久前的一个下午说道。“如果侵蚀持续下去，我就只能离开这家客栈了。这是肯定的。”

Guesthouses have proliferated⁶ across this archipelago in the Indian Ocean, as the Maldives shifts away from catering⁷ to the über-rich and welcomes budget-conscious travelers.

随着马尔代夫从款待大富豪转向吸引精打细算的游客，印度洋的这个群岛上冒出了很多客栈。

But unlike resort islands, which spend millions of dollars on constructing sea walls, dredging sand and hiring marine⁸ biologists, islands with small-scale guesthouses are mostly reliant on the government for protection from shore erosion and rising seas, which many on Guraidhoo attribute to climate change.

那些高级度假村所在的岛屿可以花费数以百万计的美元建造防波堤、疏浚沙滩、雇用海洋生物学家，而遍布小客栈的岛屿主要靠政府来防止海岸侵蚀和海平面的上升，古拉德胡岛上的很多人把这些问题归因于气候变化。

Residents say the funds for conservation projects are available in the form of tourist taxes, paid through business owners to the government. The problem, they say, is that it is unclear where the money is going — or whether it ultimately can save the world’s lowest-lying country.

当地居民称，游客通过店家支付给政府的旅游税可以是保护项目的资金来源。但他们说，问题是目前尚不清楚这些钱正流向何处，以及最终能否拯救世界上海拔最低的这个国家。

“If the Maldives don’t exist, we’re not losing just 400,000 people,” said Maeed Mohamed Zahir, the director for advocacy at Ecocare, an environmental organization based in Malé, the capital.

“如果马尔代夫不存在了，失去的不只是40万人，”在位于首都马累的环保组织关爱生态(Ecocare)担任倡导主管的麦伊德·穆罕默德·查希尔(Maeed Mohamed Zahir)说。

“We’re losing a nationality, an identity, a cultural history, a language, a script,” he added. “We’re losing the beaches. We’re losing the coconut⁹ palms. We’re losing everything.”

“我们会失去一个民族、一种身份、一段文化史、一种语言与文字，”他补充道。“我们会失去海滩。我们会失去椰子树。我们会失去一切。”

For most of the Maldives’s history as a tourist destination, its government prohibited visitors from staying on the 200 islands inhabited by locals. Instead, foreigners were ferried to privately¹⁰ owned resort islands where villas¹¹ jutting¹² out into the ocean are the norm.

在马尔代夫作为旅游胜地的大部分时间里，该国政府都禁止游客待在当地人居住的200个小岛上。游客会被送往为私人所有的度假岛，那些岛上常常伫立着伸入大海的别墅。

But after the 2008 election of Mohamed Nasheed as president — the first democratically elected leader after 30 years under autocracy¹³ — a law was passed that allowed residents to open guesthouses.

但穆罕默德·纳希德(Mohamed Nasheed)于2008年当选总统后，一项允许居民开客栈的法案得以通过。纳希德是在马尔代夫历经30年的独裁统治之后，经民主选举产生的第一位领导人。

Although the tourism industry is still dominated by villas rented for thousands of dollars a night, foreigners can now book more modest accommodations for as little as $30. Around 400 guesthouses are registered in the Maldives.

尽管主导旅游业的依然是每晚租金高达数千美元的别墅，但外国人目前也能以低至30美元的价格预定更为简朴的住处。在马尔代夫，注册登记的客栈约有400家。

Now, with guesthouses injecting cash into local economies and providing greater employment opportunities outside the resort industry, many hope this new revenue generator¹⁴ is here to stay. That is, of course, if the islands remain above water.

现在，鉴于客栈为当地经济带来了现金流，还在度假村行业之外提供了更多的工作机会，很多人都希望这一新的收入来源能存续下去。当然了，前提是海水不把岛屿淹没。

In 2015, to help fund conservation and waste management projects in the Maldives, the government passed a bill levying¹⁵ a “green tax” on tourists visiting resorts. For every night booked, tourists pay $6. Last year, guesthouses, which were initially¹⁶ exempt¹⁷ from the policy, were added to the list of green taxpaying businesses at a discounted rate of $3 a night.

2015年，为了帮助筹集用于本国保护项目和废物管理项目的资金，马尔代夫政府通过了一项法案，向光顾度假村的游客征收“环保税”。游客每住一晚需缴税6美元。从去年开始，原本不用缴纳环保税的客栈住户也成了课税对象，但他们享有税率优惠，每晚只需缴纳3美元。

Guraidhoo has a permanent population of around 1,900 people, but hosts 12 guesthouses and another 1,000 day visitors. But residents say the government has yet to start work on their island.

古拉德胡共有常住人口约1900人，但岛上开着12家客栈，每天会有1000名游客到这里游玩。不过居民们说，政府尚未在他们这个岛上开展任何工作。

“It is very simple,” said Mohamed Solih, 50, the owner of Ithaa Beach Inn. “The cow that gives more milk has to be fed more. So islands that pay tourism taxes should be a priority in shore protection initiatives by the government.”

“事情很简单，”伊萨沙滩客栈(Ithaa Beach Inn)的主人、现年50岁的穆罕默德·索利赫(Mohamed Solih)说，“要让奶牛多产奶，就得多喂草料。因此政府开展沙滩保护行动时应该优先考虑交旅游税的岛。”

Asked how green taxes are spent, the Ministry¹⁸ of Environment directed questions to the country’s Environmental Protection Agency, which directed questions to the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Finance declined to comment despite repeated questions. A review of the country’s 2017 budget proposal did not yield information about where green tax revenue is allocated¹⁹.

当被问及如何使用环境税时，马尔代夫环保部将这一问题转给了环境保护局，后者又将问题转给了财政部。尽管记者一再追问，但财政部拒绝置评。记者查阅了马尔代夫2017年的预算案，但没有看到关于如何使用环境税收入的信息。

Among concerns voiced by residents of Guraidhoo are a monsoon²⁰ season that has become more erratic²¹ and intense, and degradation²² of the reef system, which acts as a natural buffer²³ against rising seas. There are also problems with erosion — which residents attribute to storm surges — harbor modifications²⁴ and even shore protection practices on other islands.

古拉德胡居民表达了对一些问题的关切，譬如雨季的天气状况变得更不稳定、更极端了，一个作为抵御海平面上升的天然屏障的珊瑚礁群正在退化。还有侵蚀问题——居民们将其归咎于风暴潮——港口改造问题，乃至别的岛保护海岸的方法问题。

Gazing out toward the island of Kandooma, which is separated from Guraidhoo by a thin channel of water, Mr. Solih said he believed part of the erosion problem could be attributed to sand dredging at the nearby Holiday Inn Resort.

索利赫望着与古拉德胡隔着一道窄窄海峡的康杜玛岛说，他认为侵蚀问题在某种程度上可以被归咎于附近假日酒店度假村(Holiday Inn Resor)的挖沙之举。

“Erosion on this island is very much connected to the development work done on the resort,” he said. “Kandooma is a coral rock island, not a sand island like you see now. They dredged sand and pumped sand and reclaimed²⁵ the beaches. After that, erosion became a big problem here.”

“这个岛的侵蚀问题与那个度假村的开发工作有很大联系，”他说。“康杜玛是一个珊瑚岩岛，而非像你现在看到的一样是沙岛。他们曾挖沙、抽沙，改造海滩。那以后，侵蚀就成了这里的一个大问题。”

At the resort, Mohamed Shahid, a marine biologist who oversees²⁶ shore protection projects, said sand dredging was not eroding Guraidhoo’s shore, but he acknowledged that the relationship between the islands had occasionally been frosty.

在那个度假村，负责督导海岸保护工程的海洋生物学家穆罕默德·沙希德(Mohamed Shahid)说，挖沙作业并未让古拉德胡的海岸受到侵蚀。但他承认两岛之间的关系有时会变得非常紧张。

“We have had a lot of discussions with the local authorities on that side,” he said, adding that Guraidhoo improperly²⁷ disposes of garbage, which affects the resort. “We try to be diplomatic. We help them and they help us kind of a thing.”

“我们和那边管事的进行过大量讨论，”他说。他还表示，古拉德胡以不恰当的方式处理垃圾，对度假村造成了影响。“我们试图进行斡旋。我们帮他们点儿忙，他们再帮我们点儿忙。”

On a recent tour of the Holiday Inn, Mr. Shahid was enthusiastic²⁸ about technology used to protect Kandooma. Apart from using a dredging machine, which he estimated cost several hundred thousand dollars, concrete sea walls have been erected²⁹ at certain points near the beach.

最近到访假日酒店时，沙希德对用来保护康杜玛岛的技术充满热忱。除了有一台据他估计耗资数十万美元购入的疏浚机，海滩附近的某些地点还竖起了水泥海墙。

In total, Mr. Shahid said the operating budget for putting shore protection in place at the resort most likely surpassed $1 million.

沙希德说，度假村海岸保护措施的运营预算总额极有可能超过了100万美元。