But nearly halfway into Ramdan, the country is grappling with a severe shortage. Coconut prices have skyrocketed to record levels. Over the past week, retail prices reached as high as MVR 75 (US$ 5), up more than sixfold from MVR 12 to MVR 15 per coconut before Ramadan.

The coconut crisis dates back to 2023 when a black fungus called sooty mould wrought havoc in the northern islands, killing off some of the main plantations. But according to experts, harvests had already been declining for years by then due to the old age of Maldivian coconut palms and previous incidents of pests decimating groves.

When prices soared to formerly record highs of MVR 40 per coconut during Ramadan in 2023, private businesses and the State Trading Organisation imported the largest quantities of coconuts ever recorded – a previously unimaginable scenario in an island nation where the coconut palm has been a symbol of abundance for centuries.

"Today the importation of coconuts is a regrettable trend that threatens the unique identity of our islands. It is losing the very islandness of our islands,” suggested Maeed Mohamed Zahir, advocacy director of environmental NGO EcoCare Maldives.

“It is crucial for the government to strengthen its commitment to the National Coconut Palm Rehabilitation Programme focusing on the planting of more young coconut groves across the islands. The government must enhance its support for local councils in the initiative."

In 2017, a longstanding ban on coconut imports to protect the local industry was relaxed in the face of declining harvests. Since imports of mature coconut were allowed, just over 23 tons of coconuts were brought until 2022, according to customs data. But the amount exploded to 662 tons in 2023 before shrinking to 274 tons last year. 

The present shortage reveals a troubling disconnect between historical ubiquity and modern practices. The scarcity stems from a complex interplay of aging palm populations, land use changes and shifting economic priorities, underscoring broader concerns about food security, preservation of millennia-old cultural heritage and sustainable resource management in a low-lying archipelago imperilled by climate change.

Coconuts are an indispensable part of the Maldivian diet, considered a staple since antiquity when the islands stood at the crossroads of ancient trade routes.

“Most of the trees on these islands are coconuts. They furnish the food of the inhabitants along with the fish [...] The nature of the coconut is marvellous. One of these palms produce each year twelve crops, one a month. Some are small, others large,” the Moroccan explorer Ibn Batuta wrote in the 14th century.

The Maldivian language Dhivehi has a dozen words for the different stages of the life cycle of a coconut: from budding flowers to the young tender coconut to the germinated coconut.

It was clear from historical accounts that the Maldives exported coconuts. Ships sailing from the Arabian gulf through to eastern seaports stopped to replenish supplies and departed with dried fish and coconuts.

From the fruit to the roots, Maldivians use every last bit of the coconut palm, extracting sugar, honey, vinegar and toddy. The shell is used to craft containers for toddy. Coir rope, valued by ancient seafarers for its strength, was weaved from the husk.

Young coconuts provide electrolyte-rich water and sweet flesh. Older coconuts have always been a quintessential ingredient in local cuisine. From the popular breakfast of mashuni, a mix of tuna, grated coconut and spices, to the Maldivian curries into which freshly squeezed coconut milk is added to thicken the curry and to balance out the sting of Maldivian githeyo mirus (scotch bonnet). Local short eats or finger food require freshly grated coconut. It is an essential ingredient in other favourites like lonumirus (chilli paste) and maskurolhi (coconut and tuna chutney).

Traditionally every inhabited island maintained and managed their natural resources, of which coconut palms were foremost, with their own indigenous system. Coconut palms were grown in communal spaces called ruhgandu (palm groves).

“Even as our seafaring ancestors engaged in trade that introduced rice and other staple foods, the cultivation and preservation of coconut groves remained a priority for Maldivians,” Maeed from EcoCare explained.

“The community collectively tended to these groves, ensuring food security and self-sufficiency through the regular planting of new palms. The stewardship of inherited coconut palm groves was always regarded as a vital responsibility, passed down through generations.”

Household crops grown in backyards included coconut palms as well.

“These are important communal resources and have been looked after as such. Every island has their bandaara [state-owned] ruhgandu and ruhgandu for families where anyone can plant and look after their own coconut palms and reap those resources,” Mohamed Basheer, the president of the Noonu atoll council, told the Maldives Independent.

These island-specific systems were never codified but followed as directives from the island office. Islands allowed anyone to plant coconut palms and manage them on communal land. On some islands, palms were owned by the state.

There were specific directives on ownership of fallen coconuts or palm leaves, an important resource in palm thatch weaving. Similar rules applied to other resources like screwpines and madhu (sea almond).

These rules formed the backbone of the women-led informal economic system of the Maldivian islands, where households earned some money on the side by selling palm thatch, sea almonds and coconuts.

But the value of these activities on local island economies has never been properly measured or quantified, leading to a lack of understanding in island planning, according to Basheer, the atoll council president.

“An astonishing amount of land is already allocated for tourism development even in Noonu atoll. Revenue from natural resources is distributed indirectly and unevenly through some development projects and public expenditure. Since Island councils don't get any revenue from these resources, they also end up allocating more land from their islands for tourism development,” he explained.

"When a hectare of land is set aside for tourism development from an inhabited Island, a council might earn around MVR 60,000 monthly from leasing it. However, we overlook what the local economy gained from that same hectare before – things like the value of coconut palms and screwpine trees and madhu gas.”

Basheer pointed to several factors that impacted coconut harvests. From 2013, an increase in land reclamation for resort development led to operators buying mature coconut palms to turn barren manmade islands green. 

“They offer a tiny payment [MVR 500] for a palm tree, but when you uproot our mature palms and replant them on someone’s private island, you will not get coconuts,” the council president said. 

Congestion and lack of proper land use planning coupled with efforts to maintain old customs such as handing out plots of land for housing were key factors behind the decline in maintaining island coconut groves, Basheer suggested.

"Inhabited Islands no longer have the space to sustain palm groves. Land use plans prioritise housing plots and street layouts without factoring in the preservation of vegetation,” he said. 

“While regulations mention maintaining vegetation, they’re unclear – only vaguely referencing protected trees without specifying what counts. Coconut palm groves, for instance, aren’t identified or valued, so they can easily be cleared to make way for homes or roads.”

A 1947 law on planting coconut palms and trees for lumber contained provisions for protecting local vegetation. Permits for cutting down a coconut palm could only be issued after planting five palms as compensation. In practice, current regulations also require planting two coconut palms for every felled tree. But enforcement is weak as the Environment Protection Agency lacks the resources to monitor vegetation on every inhabited island.

A man from Haa Dhaal Kulhudhuffushi spoke to the Maldives Independent about how inherited palm groves were cut down on his island. “At least with banana farms you can give them like six months and tell them not to plant any more and harvest what’s already planted,” he said. 

But not so when it came to cutting down a neighbour's coconut palm grove to build a road on public land: “One fine day, they went and the palm trees were felled. [The neighbours] said at least they could have taken the coconuts and the wood and sold them if they got a notice, but they didn’t even have that chance. It’s very problematic. It doesn’t even have to be a legal process, it’s just basic decency.” 

He did not mince words about the city council.  

“You are in office because of the decentralisation law which was made after 2008, The practice of digging pits and planting palm trees in bandaara bin [state-owned land] was arranged in an organised manner well before the [2008] constitution came into being. Them not having that awareness is their problem,” he said.

The Decentralisation Act of 2010, which created island jurisdictions, limited access to common resources of the atoll. As a consequence, allocation of land for housing, commerce or basic infrastructure on individual islands took precedence over food security.

In the past half century, globalisation largely solved the age-old dilemma of food security for the Maldives. As tourism propelled a poor nation of sleepy fishing villages into upper-middle-income status, the Maldivian diet gradually expanded from different types of grains to live cattle and fresh produce. 

All major staple foods are now imported, a costly reliance that makes food security subject to shipping and logistics, the impact of climate change in producing countries and fluctuations in global fuel prices.

External shocks have been felt across multiple food groups, most notably with record hikes in the price of onion and garlic, both of which are essential ingredients in most local dishes.

“Our geography, culture and even constitution are structured around atoll-based administrative units, but individual islands are too small to independently meet all economic and basic needs – such as food security, housing, commercial activity, utilities, infrastructure, and social or communal spaces,” Basheer explained. 

“However, when viewed at the scale of an entire atoll, there’s sufficient resources and strength to address these requirements. If we fail to plan at the atoll level, we’ll never be able to fulfill these needs effectively.”

Basheer and the Noonu atoll council have been at the forefront in calling for reforms to decentralisation and resource allocation for atolls. An atoll-wide plan to more equitably and sustainability allocate resources in Noonu atoll is in the planning stages.

But confronting a system designed to centrally allocate and divide resources remains a formidable challenge. 

“It is as if they’re telling you that the island you live on belongs to you, but everything beyond it – even what’s clearly visible right in front of you – doesn’t,” he said. 

“Those resources are kept out of your reach, hidden in plain view, while convincing people that decentralisation has somehow given them more control."

As coconut prices remain volatile, the government recently announced a step toward addressing the shortage. Last Sunday, the cabinet designated the uninhabited island of Ariyadhoo in Alif Dhaal atoll to develop a "Coconut Development Center" under a national palm cultivation programme.

According to the agriculture ministry, the project involves establishing nurseries for growing higher quality or genetically modified coconut palms and sustainably providing various certified coconut seedlings to islands.

"Adaptive research" is to be carried out to identify and solve palm diseases, and to undertake the cultivation of biological controls (beneficial insects and bugs) to combat palm diseases.

"Since the palms currently in the Maldives are very old, this project will provide solutions to the difficulties in obtaining coconut products and enhance food security," the agriculture ministry said.