Environmental security in the eastern Indian Ocean, Antarctica and the Southern Ocean
Martin Sanchez via Unsplash
Executive summary
This report arises from a Track 1.5 Australia–France–India strategic dialogue held in New Delhi in January 2018. It builds on a French proposal introduced at that meeting. In this study, Australian and French teams did a joint risk-mapping exercise for the area south of latitude 60°S. The Antarctic Treaty establishes that region as Antarctic territory. Australian researchers performed the risk mapping for the eastern Indian Ocean. French researchers will produce a risk assessment for the western Indian Ocean in 2020. In the Vision statement on the Australia–France relationship published on 2 May 2018, both Australia and France ‘welcomed the project to map environmental risks in the south of the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean, which will help to understand and anticipate the security consequences of climate phenomena’. The Indian Ocean region faces a wide range of transnational security challenges, particularly challenges related to environmental stresses and the impacts of climate change. The geopolitical environment in the Indian Ocean is changing and becoming more contested than it has been for many decades. The future strategic order in the ocean is likely to be more multipolar and unstable than at any time in the modern era. This is the result of several geopolitical changes that are occurring more or less concurrently, including the relative decline in US military predominance, the rise of India and China as major Indian Ocean powers and the activities of several middle powers. The consequences of major-power competition and a more militarised strategic environment can easily become intertwined with transnational environmental security issues. The other geographical focus of this study is Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. That region also faces significant environmental security threats and challenges and is now becoming more geopolitically contested as an array of countries move to assert greater influence. This report sets out an environmental ‘risk map’ for Antarctica and the Southern Ocean and the eastern Indian Ocean. It provides a contribution to the national security assessments of Australia and France. The report provides an enhanced foundation to inform policy decisions about the allocation of national resources, identifies opportunities for cooperation and suggests priorities. Our overall aim is to identify regional environment issues and threats and align them with options for medium to longer term risk mitigation strategies. We assess the likelihood and consequences of major potential disruptions, detail cross-cutting sources of disruption and possible triggers for concerted action and consider the implications of emergent issues or threats and escalated responses to them (including likely cascading and compounding impacts if threats are not addressed).
Policy recommendations
We make the following recommendations in relation to the eastern Indian Ocean:
1. Australia and France should use their experience in bilateral cooperative fisheries enforcement in the Southern Ocean to promote similar bilateral or regional cooperative arrangements elsewhere in the Indian Ocean, potentially including the eastern Indian Ocean.
2. Australia and France should facilitate greater cooperation among regional coastguard agencies. They should consider joining with like-minded partners to create arrangements for dialogue, cooperation and training among Indian Ocean coastguards. This could include a dedicated facility for the professional development of senior coastguard officials in the region.
3. Australia and France should work together to promote the establishment of integrated national maritime domain awareness systems in the Indian Ocean, including in countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. Such national systems could then work more effectively with regional maritime domain awareness systems being developed by India and other countries in the Indian Ocean.
4. Australia and France, which have the strongest maritime search and rescue capabilities among Indian Ocean states, should coordinate their capacity-building efforts with other countries that manage search and rescue regions in the Indian Ocean.
5. Australia and France, along with other key countries, such as India, should jointly develop their training and capacity-building efforts in port state control to live inspection and enforcement rates among Indian Ocean states. This should be coordinated through the Indian Ocean Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control.
6. There is considerable scope for developing framework disaster management arrangements between Australia and France and other key Indian Ocean states. Those arrangements would create coordination mechanisms for responding to disasters using the experience of ASEAN and the FRANZ arrangements among Australia, France and New Zealand in the South Pacific.
7. Australia should promote cooperation with France in high-level scientific research alliances relevant to the ‘blue economy’ and climate change, leveraging where appropriate the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Perth Programme Office facility for the Indian Ocean. Several areas of potential cooperation in ocean science are listed in this report.
8. Australia and France should join with other like-minded countries to establish an Indian Ocean Environmental Security Forum. The forum would bring together representatives from military and civilian agencies across the Indian Ocean region to create shared understandings of environmental security threats and help establish habits of dialogue in the field of environmental security. The forum could operate under the auspices of the Indian Ocean Rim Association.
9. Australia and France could consider working together to promote an international agreement to overcome current deficiencies in international law in relation to the protection of the integrity of undersea communications cables.
