4 - A Policy Framework for Fisheries Conflicts in the Indian Ocean

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The post-Cold War period has seen a move towards a modern sovereignty concept in terms of increasing cooperative action on the conservation and management of regional and global fisheries. While this can only lead to a long-term improvement in ocean ecosystem health, too little scholarly attention has been given to the politics of maritime conservation issues. Environmental ideals of ecological sustainability and the maximization of marine biodiversity are invariably compromised by the outcomes of a range of interacting conflicts at all jurisdictional and interest levels.

The principal purpose of this chapter is to describe and discuss an integrated framework of analysis that makes more explicit where such conflicts are likely to occur as a kind of checklist for policymaker action. It is argued that the resolution of these conflicts will contribute towards the maximization of marine biodiversity as a consequence of directly addressing some of the impediments to closer cooperation at all interest levels.

The chapter contends that fishing conflicts can be conceptualized as a complex set of interactions among five sets of variables — the marine environment, international marine resources management regimes, government agencies, local community fisheries, and non-state actors. The nature of conflict is elaborated for each of these sets of variables, using illustrative examples from the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) from an Australian perspective. Some of the policy implications of the framework are briefly outlined.

This chapter represents a plea for the development of integrated marine management policies in the IOR that imply changes to the goals of all stakeholders and an increase in interstate cooperation among neighbouring states. In order to maximize interstate cooperation, a basic typology of fishing conflicts is devised as a kind of action policy checklist that can then be applied to the identification and resolution of regional fishing disputes.

FISHING CONFLICTS: TOWARDS AN INTEGRATED FRAMEWORK OF ANALYSIS

A Basic Typology of Fishing Conflicts

All fishing conflicts can be conceptualized as a complex set of interactions among five sets of variables — the marine environment, international marine resources management regimes, government agencies, local community fisheries, and non-state actors — the relative importance of which will vary contextually.