Is the coral in the Maldives dying?

The coral in the Maldives is damaged, but it isn't dead. I went looking for that answer because the reef is the reason most of us go, and because you can't look at a map of all those resort islands without wondering what they do to it. What I found was more hopeful than I feared, and more complicated than "the resorts are killing it".

The islands are built on the reef

I started out thinking of the reef as the thing you snorkel over. It turns out to be the thing you're standing on.

The Maldives is almost all sea, and the islands sit on top of the reef. Their sand is ground-up coral, and a healthy reef keeps growing and breaks the waves before they hit the beach. Around 3% of all the coral reef on Earth is here, with more kinds of fish than you could learn in a lifetime.

What that means: when Maldivians worry about the reef, they're not just worried about tourism. They're worried about whether their island will still be there. And for you it means the reef isn't decoration. It's the reason the beach in the brochure exists.

Why the coral keeps dying

Coral doesn't die of old age here. It dies of heat. When the sea stays too warm for too long, coral throws out the tiny algae that feed it and turns white. That's bleaching. If the water stays too warm for weeks, the coral starves and dies.

The Maldives has been through this three times in a big way, and you can see it in how much of the reef floor is covered in living coral.

How much of the Maldives reef is living coral (higher is healthier)

1997, before45%

2000, two years after7%

2015, recovered35%

After the 1998 heatwave, then the recovery. In 2016 and 2024 it dropped again. Source: GCRMN, Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2025.

The middle bar is the bad news: in 1998 most of the living coral died. The last bar is the good news: it came back most of the way. Slowly, over about fifteen years, but it came back.

Then it was hit again in 2016, and again in 2024. The last time, the central atolls, where most resorts are, lost around 40% of their living coral. The far south got away with it.

And here's the real problem. Last time, recovery took the best part of fifteen years, but big heatwaves now come every four to six. A reef that gets knocked down every time it's halfway back up never quite gets there. Who loses? Island communities first, because a weaker reef is a weaker sea wall. And anyone who comes for the coral itself.

What you'll see when you put your face in the water

This is the part that matters for your holiday, and it's less grim than it sounds.

The coral that goes first is the delicate kind: the branching and table-shaped corals that make a reef look like a garden. The tough, round, boulder-like corals cope much better with heat. So after bleaching a reef often still has its shape and plenty of life, but it looks greyer, with patches of broken coral and algae in between.

The animals are another story. Turtles, reef sharks, rays and the clouds of reef fish don't disappear with the branching coral. Parrotfish, the ones you can hear crunching on the reef, have even been fully protected since 2020.

So you can have a brilliant snorkel over a reef that a marine biologist would call damaged. Both are true at once. If you're picturing coral like a flower bed, expect something more mixed. Expect the animals; don't count on the garden.

So what do all those resorts do to the reef?

This was the question I most wanted answered. My honest summary: they hurt it most while they're being built, they often protect it afterwards, but they're not what's killing it.

Building is the worst moment. A new resort means dredging, pumping sand onto beaches, and driving in piles for jetties and water villas. Scientists who compared resort islands found less coral around the newest resorts, and fewer of the big, old coral heads that take decades to grow. That old coral doesn't come back in your lifetime.

After that, a resort can be a refuge. The reason is simple: a resort doesn't just rent an island, it gets the reef around it too, and fishing boats are usually not allowed to work there. So the snapper that would have ended up on a dinner plate, and the butterflyfish that would have ended up in someone's fish tank, just stay where they are. Scientists counted more of both around resort islands than around islands where people live, and even gave it a name: the "resort effect". For you, it means the reef off your own beach is often busier with fish than one a few islands away.

But resort reefs took the heat harder. Over nineteen years of surveys, the reefs around resort islands lost more coral in the 2016 heatwave than reefs around empty islands, and were slower to bounce back. The sheltered lagoons did worst. One likely reason is a bit ironic: food waste and fish feeding feed the algae too, and algae are quick to grab the space where coral died.

The biggest diggers aren't resorts. Near Malé, ships are pumping up the lagoon floor to build whole new islands and city districts. The sand clouds show up on satellite photos, and local divers say the water has gone murky and they see fewer sharks. Far south, in Addu, the same was done to make room for homes and tourism, despite an official warning of "significant irreversible damages" to the reefs.

So who wins? Resorts, twice: they sell the reef and they're often its only guard. The reef loses while the building work is going on, and in every heatwave. And you lose if you book on a ten-year-old photo.

What this changes when I choose a resort

Here's what I take from all this, and what I look at when I review a resort.

How close the reef is to your villa. Reefs facing the open sea held up better than sheltered lagoon reefs. A short swim to the edge of the reef is a good sign.

When the resort last built something. A new jetty or new sand on the beach can leave the water cloudier and the coral more broken near the villas for a while. It's a fair question to ask before you book.

How recent the reef photos are. The 2024 heatwave changed a lot. Photos from before then can show a reef that no longer looks like that.

Not the price. The most expensive island can have a tired lagoon reef. A mid-priced one can have coral right off the beach.

At Anantara Kihavah, for example, this is exactly why I'd pick a beach villa over a water villa: the reef is a few strokes from the sand, and a long swim from the overwater jetty.

And two things you can do once you're there: don't feed the fish, and don't stand on the coral. Feeding helps the algae win, and a reef that's fighting heat doesn't need us leaning on it.

The reef in the Maldives is damaged, and anyone who tells you otherwise hasn't looked. But the animals are still there, the tough corals are still building, and between heatwaves it keeps trying to come back. If you choose a resort where the reef is close and looked after, and go with the right picture in your head, it can still be the best part of your trip.

Where this article falls short

I'm not a marine biologist, and I haven't been in the water at these reefs. Everything here comes from published research and reporting. One of the studies I lean on, about seven resort islands, sits behind a paywall, so for that one I've worked from its published summary. The figures for 2024 cover the central and southern atolls, not every reef, and the next heatwave can change the picture again. In Addu I could confirm that the dredging went ahead and the sand filling is finished, but not what the reefs look like now. And I can't tell you the state of any single resort's reef from this article; that's what the reviews are for.