By Olivia Lang COLOMBO, Dec 17 (Reuters) - The Maldives new president said his eye-catching plan to buy land to relocate his low-lying archipelago nation when the seas rise was exaggerated by the media, but highlighted the need to plan for climate change. Mohamed Nasheed, a former democratic activist who was jailed repeatedly by former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, made history in October when he defeated the three-decade incumbent in the Indian Ocean nation's first-ever multi-party elections. Shortly after his election, he made world headlines by saying his cash-strapped government wanted to buy a new homeland for Maldivians in case the oceans rose and turned his country into another Atlantis -- the fabled city swallowed by the sea. "How it later went on and on and on in the media I think is a little exaggeration on what it is," he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. Maldives is one of the world's most endangered nations due to global warming, which could see many of its low-lying islands submerged if a U.N. climate change's panels predictions about sea levels rising by up to 59 cm (two feet) by 2100 are correct. Over 80 percent of the Maldives' 1,192 islands and atolls are less than 1 metre above mean sea level, with the highest point about 3 metres (10 feet) above sea level. "The wider and the stronger issue is still that you cannot mitigate climatic change or the impacts of climatic change without good governance. And I think that's the core of the issue," he said. Nasheed since there was no way to avoid that, the country of 369,000 mostly Sunni Muslims, known mostly worldwide as a luxury tourist haven, needed to make its own plans. Nasheed said a sovereign fund to use in the eventuality of submersion of the islands, 200 of which are inhabited, remains a priority for his government. "Saving for a rainy day is a very strong pillar policy of this government. And 100 or 200 years down the line still if it's going to rain we want to have a safety pot," he said. He had initially said he was discussing the possibility of buying land in Sri Lanka, India and Australia. But on Sunday he said he was not discussing that with governments. "It's not a bilateral issue at all. It's an open market," he said. "You can buy land in all sorts of places." Nasheed has inherited a host of more immediate problems, including high levels of heroin addiction, rising crime levels and the possible slowdown on the vital tourist industry because of the global recession. (Editing by Bryson Hull and David Fox)
A destroyed bulldozer is seen at a burned area in the forest at the coastal town of Laguna Verde, some 115 km (71 miles) northwest of Santiago, in this March 6, ...
