Violent maritime spaces: Conservation and security in Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, India

Political Geography 80 (2020) 102160

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Violent maritime spaces: Conservation and security in Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, India Rahul Muralidharan a, b, *, Nitin D. Rai a a b

Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Royal Enclave, Sriramapura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore, 560 064, Karnataka, India Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, 576104, Karnataka, India

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Marine protected area Civil war Conservation Security Trafficking Soft-counter insurgency

The militarisation of conservation involves the integration of conservation, security and counterinsurgency through violent and armed strategies, or ‘war, by conservation’. We describe a militarised conservation practice in which a marine protected area was established by the state and supported by international actors in a region of ongoing ethnic and military conflict as a case of conservation, by war. Conservation and security actors actively criminalise artisanal fishing communities in Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park in India. The harvest of sea cucumbers, marine species of commercial value historically traded between the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka, was banned and has become the target of militarised action. When the Sri Lankan civil war broke out in 1983, sea cucumber trade turned into a security concern as the same sea routes were also being used for trafficking arms, ammunition, and other contraband. Tamil Nadu was geographically and logistically involved in the civil war due to ethnic ties. The Sri Lankan civil war and its social and political consequences on the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu due to ethnic ties is a fitting case of the nexus of conservation and security in a marine context. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews conducted with artisanal fishers and conser­ vation and security actors, we show that violent political conflict provided the justification for securitisation of conservation. As the state focuses its conservation efforts on the marine protected area, commercial fisheries detrimental to fisheries and biodiversity conservation continue. Marine protected areas allow the state to achieve its security outcomes even as it fails to meet its conservation goals due to non-local drivers of declines in species populations. Trans-boundary marine environments are particularly difficult to govern due to the dynamic nature of the seascape. The materiality of the sea and the conservation-security nexus results in the creation of a violent maritime space.

1. Introduction The critical literature on conservation describes how counterinsur­ gency warfare techniques for national security were used to bring forests and recalcitrant populations under control (Peluso, 1993; Peluso & Vandergeest, 2011; Vandergeest & Peluso, 1995). The state deploys military tactics through conservation actors when spaces such as pro­ tected areas are created within the context of political violence (Peluso & Vandergeest, 2011; Ybarra, 2012). Conservation becomes a reason for and means of security under particular practices of state territorialisa­ tion and a mechanism to reproduce state power (Bocarejo & Ojeda, 2016; Neumann, 2004). The militarisation of conservation or ‘green wars’ involves the integration of conservation, security, and

counterinsurgency through violent and armed strategies or ‘war, by conservation’ (Duffy, 2016). In this paper, we show how conservation measures are used to meet security objectives in marine environments. These strategies have vio­ lent outcomes for artisanal fishing communities who are dispropor­ tionately affected. We describe the case of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park that was established in Tamil Nadu, India, a region of ongoing ethnic and military conflict — the Sri Lankan civil war. Com­ munities of artisanal fishers —‘fishing households [as opposed to com­ mercial companies], using relatively small amount of capital and energy, relatively small fishing vessels [if any], making short fishing trips, close to shore’ (FAO, 2015) — in the region have historically depended on near-shore marine resources for their livelihoods and

* Corresponding author. Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Royal Enclave, Sriramapura, Jakkur Post, Bangalore, 560 064, Karnataka, India. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Muralidharan), [email protected] (N.D. Rai). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2020.102160 Received 28 December 2018; Received in revised form 6 February 2020; Accepted 7 February 2020 0962-6298/© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

R. Muralidharan and N.D. Rai

Political Geography 80 (2020) 102160

subsistence. The establishment of the Gulf of Mannar Marine Protected Area (MPA) turned it into an area of conservation priority, leading to the customary rights of artisanal fishers being withdrawn and their tradi­ tional practices framed as destructive. We describe how coercive con­ servation and security actors are able to maintain control by colluding in criminalising the artisanal fishers in the Gulf of Mannar MPA in the background of the Sri Lankan civil war. Sea cucumbers are found all along the coast of India. The state of Tamil Nadu has historical trade links with Sri Lanka that date back to more than a thousand years. In 1983, when the Sri Lankan civil war broke out, the sea routes used for sea cucumber trade were also used for trafficking arms, ammunition, and other contraband, making sea cucumber trade a security concern for India. Tamil Nadu’s historical ties with Sri Lanka, both geographically and politically, played an important role in the three-decade long pro­ tracted civil war (1983–2009). After the Indian government banned the harvest of sea cucumbers in 2001, the artisanal fishers in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay who extensively engage in breath-hold free diving to handpick sea cucumbers resorted to illegal means in order to cater to the demand. To this day, sea cucumbers continue to be traf­ ficked to Sri Lanka, from where they are shipped to SouthEast Asian countries. The demand for sea cucumbers mainly comes from countries such as China, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia because of its pro­ fessed medicinal properties and culturally-important consumption practices. The civil war in Sri Lanka provided the context and justification for conservation and security actors to cohere in their control of sea cu­ cumber trafficking. The Coastal Security Group, formed in 1994 during the Sri Lankan civil war, aims to prevent the collusion of fishers, mil­ itants, and smugglers in coastal areas that were difficult to govern (Das, 2013). Although the Coastal Security Group does not have a stated conservation mandate, they have involved themselves in conservation

activities, especially in the control of sea cucumber trafficking, given the trans-boundary context of the operations. Sea cucumbers are a lucrative commodity; despite the ban, their trafficking is an everyday, on-going occurrence. We argue that the Sri Lankan civil war played an essential role in the securitisation of the Gulf of Mannar waters, using conservation as a premise to control and contain artisanal fishing communities. Existing literature shows that the increasing militarisation of conservation in defence of wildlife produces violence (Duffy, 2014; Lunstrum, 2014). By highlighting the marine context of poaching and trafficking activities, we describe how conservation is practiced in an environment that has been securitised through war and how the state uses conservation ar­ guments to gain authority over artisanal fishing communities. The empirical material presented in this paper is based on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork (2015–2017) conducted in the villages of the Gulf of Mannar (Fig. 1). Interviews were conducted with artisanal fishing communities, the forest department, the fisheries department, the Coastal Security Group, the Gulf of Mannar Trust, non-governmental organisations, and local researchers. Data was also gathered through observation and detailed note-making by participating in fishing activ­ ities, official meetings/workshops and awareness events, village and fisher union meetings, and by accompanying Forest Department ground staff on patrol activities to the islands. We also analysed text and audiovisual materials, such as project documents, evaluation reports, man­ agement plans, short documentaries and news reports, produced by the state and non-governmental organisations. In the next section, we present our conceptual framework by reviewing key political-ecological debates linking protected areas, conservation, and securitisation. We then provide a brief background to the Sri Lankan civil war, the marine context of the conflict, and the in­ securities it created for the Indian state due to the movements of

Fig. 1. The approximate areal extent of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park comprising 21 small coral reef islands is indicated in a hatched box due to existing ambiguities in the demarcation of its boundaries. 2

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Political Geography 80 (2020) 102160

militants, refugees, and illegal contraband. We discuss the conservation interventions in the Gulf of Mannar MPA in the midst of state-aided fisheries development efforts. We describe the implications of the ban on sea cucumber harvest for local fishers and for conservation and securitisation practices. We then highlight the collusion and contesta­ tion in the conservation of sea cucumbers by describing the main actors working in the seascape. Finally, we show how the combination of conservation and security restrictions criminalise and disproportion­ ately affect artisanal fishers in the region.

1990s included conflict prevention and peace-keeping operations in areas of violent conflict, such as civil wars (Griffin, 2003). The UNDP has used biodiversity conservation as an approach for peace keeping in conflict zones (Akçali & Antonsich, 2009). By choosing to implement conservation programmes in such geopolitically fraught environments, actors such as the UNDP and the Indian state have made targeted de­ cisions about the use of securitisation strategies in conservation. Conservation has seen increasing militarisation to bring recalcitrant populations under control and the rise of security logic in conservation spaces (Duffy, 2016; Ybarra, 2016). The appropriation of counterin­ surgency approaches originally deployed as part of a war discursively reconstructs fisher identities and secures border spaces and populations. We explore how violent political conflict influences conservation and attracts intervention by state and non-state actors.

2. Marine conservation in the shadow of political violence A common goal of territorialisation is to govern resources and people within a given territory (Scott, 1998). Territorialisation serves strategic economic and political purposes (Elden, 2007). Territories that are established for conservation are governed through narratives of threat and scarcity to dispossess local communities and make these areas available to more powerful actors for capital accumulation (Benja­ minsen & Bryceson, 2012; Corson, 2011). Scholars have tracked the rise of a security logic in addition to a conservation justification to displace people from protected areas at international borders (Lunstrum & Ybarra, 2018). Such state practices reframe residents as security threats whose displacement is necessary for national security, resulting in livelihood erasure, dispossession, and eviction of peasant communities (Lunstrum & Ybarra, 2018). Kelly and Ybarra (2016: 174) suggest that we ‘must continually question the ways protected areas managers’ framing of environmental subjects may be used to police them, potentially dispossessing them of political claims to territory and livelihoods’. MPAs are considered important to meet global conservation goals. Though MPAs are not as effectively territorialised as terrestrial areas, geopolitical and ecological concerns have motivated state efforts despite resistance from fishing communities (Chmara-Huff, 2014), particularly to ‘no-take’ MPAs. Marine environments escape geopolitical control as they are fluid, making them much more challenging to monitor, conserve or secure compared to terrestrial landscapes (Peters, 2014; Steinberg, 1999), thereby increasing the need for surveilling and monitoring people. The violence associated with the protection of wildlife or conserva­ tion, which is state-directed and state-authorised, has been referred to as ‘green wars’ (Buscher & Fletcher, 2018). Illegal wildlife trade when framed as a global security threat can shape conservation practice, through the inclusion of security actors in conservation efforts (Mass�e & Lunstrum, 2016). The securitisation has changed the identity of local communities from being putative ‘eco-destroyers’ to being embedded in broader security threats such as in the war on drugs and terror (Bocarejo & Ojeda, 2016; Duffy, 2016; Ybarra, 2016). More recently, Duffy (2016) shows that the framing of ‘poacher-as-terrorist’ is used as a security logic to foreground counterinsurgency measures while conservation is considered to be secondary. The ‘war by conservation’ approach in­ tegrates global security concerns within conservation objectives; consider the US-led war on terror, which is a significant break from the ‘war for biodiversity’ approach that calls for increased militarisation of conservation actors. Conservation objectives are integrated with global security concerns and the use of force is justified by poachers identified as belonging to terrorist networks. The discursive linking of poaching and terrorism aids in framing policies that are unjust and counter-productive, and have implications for people and conservation on the ground (Duffy, 2016). Poaching and wildlife trafficking are considered severe threats to territorial sovereignty and economic security by various UN agencies, linking them to influencing insurgency, organised crime, and terrorism (Mass�e, Lunstrum, & Holterman, 2017). The United Nations Develop­ ment Program (UNDP) identifies the lack of development as a driver of poverty, environmental degradation, and conflict (UNDP, 1994). Established as a development organisation, the UNDP’s focus in the

3. The Sri Lankan civil war The civil war which broke out in 1983 was a result of increasing oppression and marginalisation by the Sri Lankan state of the Tamil speaking population in the country’s north and east, which led Tamil youth groups to take up an armed struggle for independence (Hoole, Sosasundaram, Sritharan, & Thiranagama, 1992, p. 468; Krishna, 1999). Many armed groups demanded the establishment of an independent state of ‘Tamil Eelam’ (Tamil homeland) in the country’s north and east. The Liberation Tigers of the Tamil Eelam (LTTE) consolidated power over these groups and became the voice of the Tamil separatist move­ ment. The ethnic nature of the Sri Lankan civil war and the proximity of the war zone to Tamil Nadu created security problems for India due to the operations of militants and the arrival of refugees fleeing the war, often through the sea route across the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay. In 1984, the LTTE created a naval wing called ‘sea tigers’, with recruits from the fisher communities. The LTTE envisaged that the security of the de-facto state of ‘Tamil Eelam’ was geographically interlinked with that of the sea and that a strong navy could break the dominance of Sri Lankan forces (Murphy, 2007). The guerrilla tactics of the sea tigers made them a fierce maritime force turning parts of Sri Lanka’s north and east into LTTE strongholds. The sea tigers were also engaged in extensive trafficking of arms and ammunition as well as other contraband to support LTTE activities (Povlock, 2011). India’s role in the Sri Lankan civil war was complex and tied to ethnic and security rationalities. The civil war in Sri Lanka had consequences for India’s territorial sovereignty. First, India was cautious about global superpowers such as China and the United States stepping in to help Sri Lanka mediate the civil war, which could pose challenges to India’s geopolitical interests (Krishna, 1999). Second, Tamil people in India, Sri Lanka, and the diaspora across the world demanded solutions to the conflict as the escalating tensions between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil militants resulted in many civilian casualties. Third, though India supported the LTTE during the initial phases of the war, it declared the LTTE as a terrorist organisation in 1992. Finally, LTTE’s strategic control over maritime territories and the ethnic support from the Tamil Nadu fishers who served as conduits for arms and supplies due to their Tamil connection enabled the LTTE to extend the civil war for nearly three decades. Hence, Tamil Nadu served as a sanctuary and backyard for the LTTE, resulting in a close relationship between local fishers and Tamil separatists (Suryanarayan, 2004). 4. Conservation amidst fisheries development in the Gulf of mannar 4.1. Islands of science: Territorialisation of the Gulf of Mannar The territorialisation of the Gulf of Mannar MPA comprising 21 small coral reef islands began as a scientific project. In 1975, the Education and Tourism Minister of Tamil Nadu wrote to the Union Minister of Agriculture and Irrigation to explore the feasibility of creating a Marine 3

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Political Geography 80 (2020) 102160

National Park in the Gulf of Mannar to promote education and tourism (CMFRI, 1977). The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) offered to provide technical expertise for setting up a national park by undertaking rapid surveys to document biodiversity and human dependence. CMFRI researchers identified traditional fishing activities, firewood collection, and seaweed harvest by the fishers in the islands as a threat to Gulf of Mannar’s biodiversity. The report highlighted the urgent need to protect one or more islands as ‘islands of science’ that were devoid of human interference, to be used only for scientific pur­ poses (CMFRI, 1977). This threat narrative has been closely tied to the history of conservation interventions in the Gulf of Mannar. In 1986, even as the Sri Lankan civil war was raging, India estab­ lished the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park under the Wildlife Protection Act (WLPA), 1972. The 21 small coral reef islands in Gulf of Mannar became the core zone of the MPA. The WLPA prioritises wildlife conservation and prohibits human habitation in core zones of national parks while permitting certain activities in buffer zones. In 1989, the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park also became SouthEast Asia’s first Marine Biosphere Reserve, with an area of 10,500 sq. km. The Gulf of Mannar islands came under the control of the Tamil Nadu Forest Department. The artisanal fishers who resided and fished in the islands came under immense pressure from the state to vacate the islands. In 2002, conservation activities were intensified in the Gulf of Mannar with funds provided by the UNDP and the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust (GoMBRT), a para-state body, was created to coordinate conservation activities. The project classified 248 artisanal villages in the Gulf of Mannar into ‘threat’ categories: villages with full-time artisanal fishers were classi­ fied as ‘high’ threat and those with part-time fishers were classified as ‘medium’ and ‘low’ threat based on data on people’s dependence on island resources. The UNDP/GEF project proponents claimed that the management of the MPA was weak and that conservation needed to be intensified by enforcing the boundaries of the Marine National Park, which was justified on the grounds of overfishing, habitat destruction, and pollution. The UNDP/GEF project played a key role in bringing conservation and security agencies together and in gaining greater control over the local people though initiating alternative livelihoods and community development programmes. Analysing community development cases from across the world, Dunlap and Fairhead (2014: 7) state that “com­ munity development was initially intertwined with counter insurgency as a means to breach village isolation and integrate ‘villagers’ into state politics and economy”. This ‘soft counterinsurgency’ that was aimed at preventing the collusion of local people with insurgents worked on the ‘hearts and minds’ of the local people through community development and participatory conservation activities. Such community development programmes allowed GoMBRT to create an extensive informant network in the region. Funds under the head ‘secret service’ were made available as rewards for people exchanging crucial information on underground activities along the coast. The network also involved security actors such as the Coastal Security Group, the Indian Coast Guard, and the Indian Navy.1 In addition to this, the forest department recruited fisher youth from local villages as ‘anti-poaching’ watchers. Their job was to keep track of illegal activities, including hunting and narcotic trafficking, on the islands. When local people were caught fishing, their fishing nets and catch were confiscated, and they were often beaten and verbally abused. The UNDP/GEF project demarcated a 500 m boundary around the 21 coral reef islands as the core area of the MPA, within which fisher movement and fishing were restricted. The Tamil Nadu Forest Depart­ ment imported large buoys to demarcate these boundaries. The local

fishing communities organised protests demanding that the Tamil Nadu Forest Department not install the buoys as it would curtail their move­ ments across the islands and therefore their livelihoods.2 Several buoys were cut loose by the fishers. Over time, the remaining buoys floated away as they were not able to withstand the strong winds and under­ water currents in the Gulf of Mannar. The UNDP/GEF project funding ended in 2013, following which a series of ‘success’ stories — stating that fish resources and coral reef cover have increased due to conser­ vation interventions — began circulating.3 Contrary to the claims of the project, fishers say that fish catch had been declining. The Director of GoMBRT also agreed that the project was a failure, partly due to extensive corruption by governing officials and various hurdles in onground implementation of the project. 4.2. State-aided fisheries development and conflicts with artisanal fisheries In the early 20th century, the colonial British government identified artisanal fishing practices as primitive and wasteful and proposed a se­ ries of measures to modernise fisheries practice. In 1905, the British government established the Fisheries Department to improve the con­ ditions of the fishers. Such colonial tropes of the primitiveness and in­ efficiency of artisanal fishers continued to influence administrators even after independence. As part of fisheries development efforts, India set up its first marine fisheries research station in Mandapam in the Gulf of Mannar in 1947. Modern fishing techniques, particularly extensive bottom trawling, were tested to study the potential for fish production as part of a tripartite agreement with the Food and Agricultural Organi­ sation and Norway. The state’s intention was to train artisanal fishers in modern techniques of fishing. Fishers were encouraged to take up mechanised bottom trawling to increase fish production. Bottom trawling for shrimp is considered to be one of the most destructive fishing practices. It is particularly unsuitable for tropical, biodiversityrich seas, such as India, as it is known to catch over 400 non-target species, with a bycatch-to-shrimp ratio by mass as high as 10:1 (Alver­ son, Freeber, Murawski, & Pope, 1994, p. 235). The bottom trawlers were mainly targeting shrimp that lay on the seabed. These bottom trawlers not only scooped incidental catch which was discarded as waste but also created permanent damage to seabottom habitats. The near-shore areas in which the artisanal fishers had been fishing for many generations deteriorated due to the action of the bottom trawlers. The mechanised bottom trawlers resulted in direct damage to the passive fishing gear used by the artisanal fishers. The introduction of bottom trawling practices in Tamil Nadu created both ecological and social conflicts, resulting in militant protests and violent conflicts between artisanal and mechanised fishers (Sub­ ramanian, 2009). In 1976, the first regulation to contain bottom trawling was implemented in the Palk Bay. It is popularly known as the three-four day rule, which allows trawlers to fish for three days and artisanal boats to fish on the remaining four days (Bavinck, 2003). However, this rule was implemented in the northern reaches of the Gulf of Mannar only in 1993, after artisanal fishers carried out incessant protests. Consequently, to better compete with mechanised fishers, artisanal fishers intensified their production by adopting new technol­ ogies such as motorising their small fishing boats and experimenting with fishing gear (Bavinck, 1997).

2 ‘Floating of glowing buoys temporarily stalled’, The Hindu - https://www. thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/ldquoFloating-of-glow ing-buoys-temporarily-stalledrdquo/article16214817.ece [Published – 30 July 2010, Accessed – May 2018]. 3 Sustainable Fishing, UNDP documentary on Gulf of Mannar - https://www. youtube.com/watch?v¼uM63_IjLiP8 (Published – 31 May 2012, Accessed – 4 May 2017).

1 ‘Conservatory measures being intensified’ https://www.thehindu.com/toda ys-paper/tp-national/tp-tamilnadu/ldquoConservatory-measures-being-intensi fiedrdquo/article16002974.ece [Published - 17 March 2010, Accessed – May 2018].

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Political Geography 80 (2020) 102160

explosives, fuel, and other essential items during the civil war.4 Recent reports in the local press showing narcotics being trafficked along with sea cucumbers5 has further encouraged the Coastal Security Group to use coercive action against fishers. Sea cucumber trafficking continues to occur despite these restrictions. Frequent news reports of the capture of fishing boats transporting ‘contraband’ are common in the region.6 During interviews, the Coastal Security Group officials claimed that their control of the near-shore marine spaces and islands was essential for any conservation efforts to succeed and the Forest Department could not conserve on its own. This results in some tension among conservation and security agencies, given their diverse agendas and goals. The ban on sea cucumber harvest has had long lasting impacts on artisanal fishers. Before the ban, the artisanal fishers harvested, pro­ cessed, and sold dried sea cucumbers to local traders, which fetched them a higher price than freshly-caught sea cucumbers. After the ban, sea cucumber trafficking operations were taken over by organised gangs of local traders who exploit artisanal fishers. Due to the ban, fishers are wary of processing sea cucumbers and instead sell fresh harvest at a rate fixed by the local traders. The sea cucumber traders employ middlemen who visit artisanal fishing villages daily to collect fresh catch. The doubling of the price of sea cucumbers after the imposition of the ban (Asha et al., 2017, pp. 1–78) provides greater motivation to traffic sea cucumbers to Sri Lanka. Since these traders are powerful and have ac­ cess to capital and political contacts, they operate in a clandestine manner. They have even gone to the extent of inflicting injury to con­ servation officials. In one incident, sea cucumber trafficking traders beat up the Wildlife Warden of the Gulf of Mannar on his regular patrol to the harbour to check for fishing of endangered species, and required hos­ pitalisation (Bavinck & Karunaharan, 2006). The artisanal fishers have carried out several public protests urging the government to reconsider the blanket ban on sea cucumber harvest. They have demanded that the government instead focus its conservation efforts on banning bottom trawlers that destroy sea cucumber resources. Bottom trawlers harvest sea cucumbers that lie on the sea bed. Bottom trawlers do not differentiate between adult and juvenile animals and cause permanent damage to the bottom ecosystem. An adult sea cu­ cumber may lay up to 100,000 eggs; by using sustainable harvesting practices, the fishers could continue to reap benefits over a long period of time. Unlike mechanised fishing, the hand picking of sea cucumbers through breath-hold free diving carried out by artisanal fishers is limited by time and labour. The artisanal fishers tend to collect large-sized sea cucumbers instead of small-sized sea cucumbers as they fetch higher monetary returns for the labour invested. Given the commercial context of fishing and its contribution to the economy, the mechanised bottom trawlers operate under few restrictions.

5. The securitisation of sea cucumber conservation Sea cucumbers are elongated, tube-like, sessile marine organisms that live on the seabed. They are handpicked by free-diving collectors. Hornell (1917) notes that the sea cucumber trade relations between India, Sri Lanka, and China are several centuries old. Many species of sea cucumbers occur in the Indian subcontinent, of which two species Hol­ othuria scabra (vella attai) and Holothuria atra (paal attai) are the most sought after in the global market. Both species are found abundantly in waters with mud and silt substrates, especially along the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar. The harvest of sea cucumbers in this region con­ tinues to thrive despite the blanket ban imposed by the government in 2001. The harvest requires minimum investment — a locally-made glass face mask, a round plate made of aluminium used as a flipper on one leg, and a small collection bag tied around the waist. Thus, sea cucumbers are an important source of livelihood for the poorest of the artisanal fishers. The state claims that sea cucumbers are overexploited and uses this as a justification for the ban on the harvest of sea cucumbers. Before the ban, about 20,000 harvesters and over 50,000 people working as mid­ dlemen and traders benefitted from sea cucumber trade in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay (Asha, Vinod, Ranjith, Johnson, & Viveka­ nandan, 2017, pp. 1–78). Sea cucumber harvest was identified as a problem in the 1960s with the commencement of bottom trawling in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay. The bottom trawlers initially consid­ ered sea cucumbers as incidental catch during fishing operations; however, they began to target sea cucumbers for harvest in large quantities after discovering their commercial value in the export market. The bottom trawlers operating in the Gulf of Mannar use a specialised net called attai madi (sea cucumber net) (Asha et al., 2017, pp. 1–78). As most adult animals are buried underneath the sand, the trawlers fitted with 70–120 horsepower engines using heavy sinkers that plough the seabed to collect sea cucumbers. The first government restriction on sea cucumber harvest coincides with the rapid expansion of mechanised bottom trawling in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay. In the 1980s, when global demand for sea cucumbers increased, even small-sized, juvenile sea cucumbers were being exported in large quantities. Compiling data from the Marine Products Exports Development Authority (MPEDA), James and James (1994) note that while 7,031 kg of sea cucumbers between 4 and 6 inches in size were exported in 1979–1980, only 3,051 kg were exported in 1983–1984. On the contrary, 2,182 kg of sea cucumbers below 2 inches in size were exported in 1979–1980 and 15,495 kg were exported in 1983–1984. The total quantity of sea cucumbers exported during this period doubled — from 41,501 kg in 1979–1980 to 80,210 kg in 1983–1984. In 1982, the MPEDA recommended to the Indian govern­ ment that the export of small-sized sea cucumbers be banned (Asha et al., 2017, pp. 1–78). Sea cucumber abundance is reported to be much higher in Sri Lankan waters than in Indian waters due to the absence of destructive practices such as bottom trawling (Dissanayake & Wijeyaratne, 2007). In Sri Lanka, only hand picking through free-diving or SCUBA diving is allowed, which ensures sustainability of the resource. An outright ban on sea cucumber harvest by Indian authorities raises several questions about its timing and necessity while ignoring options for sustainable use. During the Sri Lankan civil war (1983–2009), sea cucumber trade increasingly became entangled with narcotics, arms trafficking, and illegal contraband, all of which were trafficked along the same sea routes. The sea route from Tamil Nadu to Sri Lanka is an important exit route for heroin procured from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and shipped to countries in America, Europe, and SouthEast Asia (Das, 2012). Reports have linked the rise in heroin smuggling from India, particularly from Tamil Nadu, into Sri Lanka with the Sri Lankan civil war (Sarvananthan, 2016). Security agencies claimed that the islands of the Gulf of Mannar were being used as transit points for contraband. Fishers were suspected of smuggling medicines, components for making

6. The role of state actors in sea cucumber conservation The regulation of sea cucumber trafficking involves three actors whose interventions in conservation and development disproportion­ ately impact artisanal fishers — the Forest Department (protects biodi­ versity); the Fisheries Department (develops fisheries); and the Coastal Security Group (conducts surveillance).

4 Vijaykumar. S, and Jaishankar.C. (2007) ‘Smuggling rampant on Tamil Nadu coast’. The Hindu https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/ Smuggling-rampant-on-Tamil-Nadu-coast/article14750153.ece [Published 16 April 2007, Accessed – June 2017]. 5 Local edition of the Tamil newspaper Dhinathandhi on 13 July 2017 carried a news report about Coastal Security Group confiscating 70 kg of marijuana and 10 kg of sea cucumbers in Vedalai, Gulf of Mannar. 6 Kerala cannabis worth Rs 50 lakh seized, 3 held in Tamil Nadu’s Rames­ waram, India Today https://goo.gl/ZiiZUP [Published - 18 July 2018, Accessed – August 2018].

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Political Geography 80 (2020) 102160

their conventional responsibilities of coastal security and fisher safety.8 Often, the Coastal Security Group does not hand over cases to the Forest Department. because of all their efforts to collect intelligence to nab those engaged in trafficking. By apprehending sea cucumber traf­ fickers themselves, the Coastal Security Group attracts local media attention, which enhances their image as a legitimate authority. Despite these tussles for control over the seascape, the Coastal Se­ curity Group is invited by the Forest Department to conservation awareness events that take place in the artisanal fishing villages of the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay (Fig. 2) because marine species harvest is not only perceived as a conservation problem but also as a security problem as species are trafficked across the maritime boundary into Sri Lanka. Curiously, such awareness events do not take place in trawling harbours where much more destructive practices take place. The Coastal Security Group officials told us during interviews that conservation ac­ tivities allow them to build a relationship with the fishing community and give them legitimacy. They claimed that the Forest Department and the Fisheries Department are inadequately placed to monitor these areas, and they need armed and trained actors such as the Coastal Se­ curity Group to police the near-shore coastal areas that are otherwise difficult to govern. A primary contradiction in conservation practice in the Gulf of Mannar is that while several species are listed as endangered and their harvest is banned, marine fisheries which impacts these species are not regulated. For instance, species that were listed under the endangered list under WLPA are all bottom-dwelling species such as corals, fish, sharks and rays, sea horses, sea cucumbers, and various species of shells.9 Whether or not the mechanised bottom trawlers target these species, they end up as bycatch. The Fisheries Department does not regulate the use of destructive fishing gear and solely focuses on increasing fish production. The Forest Department, with its conservation mandates, penalises and targets the artisanal fishing communities, when they land endan­ gered species caught incidentally in their fishing gear but mechanised fishers get away with such harvests. The Forest Department has advised artisanal fishers to discard any endangered species they catch in the sea and not bring such catch back to the shore or sell them.

The Forest Department and the Coastal Security Group collude in order to prevent the poaching and trafficking of sea cucumbers; how­ ever, there is some friction between them as well. Interviews with offi­ cials in the Forest Department revealed that they consider the Coastal Security Group to be a prime competitor when it comes to conservationrelated activities. Officials in the Forest Department say that though the Coastal Security Group does not have a mandate for conservation, they are getting increasingly involved in conservation-related activities to gain greater control over the Gulf of Mannar islands. This is particularly relevant in the context of narcotic smuggling via the Gulf of Mannar islands. During an interview, a Forest Department staff captures these conflicts by saying: When there is no forest watcher in the islands, smuggling activities take place. However, when forest watchers are present, they look out for poachers and smugglers. That is the reason why some islands are in the good hands of the forest department. When smuggling takes place in the islands, the forest watchers are blamed for the lack of vigilance. Some­ times the Coastal Security Group tries to take over the case or even claim their jurisdiction over the island saying that they will keep it safe from poaching or smuggling activities. But the forest department does not give up. We cannot allow the Coastal Security Group to take over the islands. If they want to do something, they have to come through us. [Interview, 27 June 2016]. Officials of the Coastal Security Group build a narrative of corruption and inefficiency among the Forest Department. Several Coastal Security Group officials told us that the Forest Department accepts bribes to let offenders go. An officer with the Coastal Security Group highlighted the nexus between the powerful traders engaged in sea cucumber trafficking and the Forest Department (Interview; 3 August 2016). As the Coastal Security Group does not have jurisdiction under the WLPA to arrest people engaged in endangered species trafficking, they have to hand over offenders to the Forest Department. To produce the offenders in the court, the Forest Department then requests the CMFRI to identify the species and to provide scientific evidence to produce in court. Given that the traders are economically powerful and politically well connected, the Forest Department often tampers with the evidence that is provided by CMFRI. The Forest Department officers receive hefty bribes from the traders. Our interview with a Ranger from the Forest Department confirmed that his predecessors have used this tactic fearing retribution by the traders. The Coastal Security Group officer who highlighted this nexus between Forest Department and sea cucumber traders narrated an incident where he arrested a fisher for poaching an endangered species assuming that the fisher would be jailed for 7 years for the wildlife offence. However, within a few days, the fisher was released, and was seen fishing in the same area where he was arrested. By engaging in prevention of sea cucumber trafficking, the Coastal Security Group seeks to gain legitimacy as a competent authority. The Coastal Security Group claims that there is no fear of the Forest Department among the fishing community as the fishers know that the Forest Department is corrupt and that fishers can get away with poaching or trafficking endangered species. The fishers claim that the Coastal Security Group, as armed actors, could take control of the ma­ rine spaces to induce fear among the fishing community not just for conservation but also security. The Coastal Security Group in Tamil Nadu collaborates with local governmental and non-governmental or­ ganisations in conducting conservation-related activities such as work­ shops, awareness events, and training sessions.7 In 2019, the Coastal Security Group, conducted awareness events in fishing villages, emphasising their involvement in marine conservation in addition to

Fig. 2. In an awareness event on sea turtle conservation, the Forest Department welcomes the Inspector of Coastal Security Group as they are considered an important stakeholder in the management of the Gulf of Mannar MPA. Photo dated 5 December 2016.

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Coastal Security Group celebrates silver jubilee, The Hindu, 1 July 2019 (Accessed 2 July 2019) https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Tiruchir apalli/coastal-security-group-celebrates-silver-jubilee/article28250666.ece. 9 Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) Gazette Notification (WLPA amendment), 11 July 2001.

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‘Scuba diving training must for all marine commandos’, The Hindu, 22 August 2015 (Accessed – 24 July 2019) https://www.thehindu.com/news/na tional/tamil-nadu/scuba-diving-training-must-for-all-marine-commandos /article7568482.ece. 6

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6.1. Conservation displacement: Ban on Island entry and violence on artisanal Fishers

nets or impose fines. The anti-poaching forest watchers bury the confiscated catch and pour toilet-cleaning acid on it to make sure the fishers do not dig it out later to consume or sell in the market.

The coastline of Ramanathapuram district in Tamil Nadu is divided into the Palk Bay in the north and the Gulf of Mannar in the south. The fishers in this region refer to the Palk Bay as pottai kadal (female sea) and Gulf of Mannar as aan kadal (male sea). The waters of the Palk Bay are shallow and are shielded by Sri Lanka to the east, while the waters of the Gulf of Mannar are deep and characterised by open seas. The 21 coral reef islands of the Gulf of Mannar act as a barrier by shielding the winds and swells from reaching the shore. Thus, the islands not only offer protection to the coastline from high energy waves but also provide calm fishing grounds for the labour-intensive artisanal fisheries. Until the 1980s, when the artisanal fishers were using non-motorised boats, the islands were ideal for fishing as they offered calm fishing spaces and abundant resources. Although the Fisheries Department introduced engines for the artisanal sector, even to this day several hundreds of fishers operate non-motorised boats in Gulf of Mannar. The 2010 Tamil Nadu Marine Fisheries Census shows that 3,214 nonmotorised boats operated in Ramanathapuram district. During emer­ gencies such as extreme wind conditions, the fishers used the islands as a place of refuge. Fishers would take their wooden boats to the shallow waters of the islands to dry dock their boats and scrape off barnacles. The ban on island entry has major impacts on fishers and affects their survival on the open seas. The islands are a boon for many artisanal fishers who use non-motorised boats. The Gulf of Mannar islands pro­ vide conditions for fish aggregation. This makes it easy for fishers who use non-motorised boats to engage in fishing in these areas compared to the effort needed to fish in areas beyond the islands. When there was no ban on island use, fishers would row their boats to the islands at night when wind speeds and swells were not high, sleep on the islands, wake up early to fish, and return to the shore in time for the fish auction. With restrictions on island use, the fishers have lost their sleep and their ef­ forts have multiplied. Another impact of the ban on island entry is the loss of access to freshwater sources. Freshwater is a precious commodity in the droughtridden district of Ramanathapuram and along the coastal fishing villages of the Gulf of Mannar. One of the islands in the Gulf of Mannar, Nalla­ thanni theevu, has potable drinking water, recharged through spring aquifer. Nallathanni theevu was a source of fresh water for many villages in the southern reaches of the Gulf of Mannar. During summers when the water sources in the village would dry up, the fishers would turn to Nallathanni theevu. They went on boats to collect water to bring back to the village. However, with conservation restrictions, the fishers were not allowed to take water from Nallathanni theevu. The fishing communities of the region now depend on private water suppliers to fulfil their summer water requirements, which increases their economic burden. Several types of island-based customary fishing practices such as trap fishing, cast netting, lobster fishing, shore seining, spearfishing, and free diving for chank and sea cucumbers are now framed as destructive practices and criminalised. Shore seining is an important customary activity practised in the region. Nearly 80–100 people are involved per net, providing employment and livelihoods to a large number of fishers. Shore seining was banned in the islands in 2002 on the grounds that it was destroying coral reefs. Artisanal fishers, who have been fishing for several generations know exactly where the coral reefs are. Such tradi­ tional knowledge is essential to operate shore seines to avoid damage due to entanglement in coral reefs and the resulting wasted efforts and economic loss. The ban on shore seining left several hundred families jobless and led to the intensification of near-shore fisheries due to lack of alternate opportunities. The Forest Department ground staff are not trained well to be able to differentiate between threatened and common species, which results in unnecessary harassment of fishers of the Gulf of Mannar. For instance, any species of shark that is caught is considered to be endangered and the anti-poaching watchers penalise fishers and confiscate their fishing

6.2. Security restrictions: Ban on technological advancements in artisanal fisheries and Island restrictions The securitisation in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay particu­ larly affect artisanal fishing boats. There is an unofficial ban on the use of fibre boats and high-speed engines. These restrictions were put in place during the Sri Lankan civil war to discourage artisanal fishers from crossing the international border. The Indian Navy launched ‘Operation Tasha’ to check the movements of insurgents, arms, ammunition, contraband, and refugees entering and leaving Tamil Nadu through the sea routes (Das, 2013). The security rationale behind these bans was to control the movement of fishing boats and curb the operations of sea tigers as they used fibre boats and high-speed engines. The ban made the sea space legible for security agencies, to differentiate fishers and mil­ itants. A decade after the end of the civil war, these restrictions are still in place. The ban on fibre boats and high-speed engines puts the artisanal fishers in the region at a disadvantage compared to artisanal fishing communities along the rest of the Tamil Nadu coast. Fibre boats are more secure, especially in the Gulf of Mannar, because they are light­ weight and can float even if they capsize. Wooden boats that are currently in use sink immediately when they capsize, which makes the lives of artisanal fishers precarious in the high energy seas of the Gulf of Mannar. As fibre boats are lightweight, they consume less fuel and are easy to manoeuvre at sea. High-speed engines such as outboard engines are lightweight, easy to operate, and allow fishers to reach their fishing grounds in time. It is important to note that these technological changes lead to higher extraction and the claims that artisanal fisheries are sustainable be­ comes difficult to defend. At the same time, a ban on technological ad­ vances should apply to all fishers operating in the region in a uniform manner. Fishers who seasonally migrate to the Gulf of Mannar from other parts of Tamil Nadu use advanced technologies and outcompete artisanal fishers from the region. This competitive environment places them at a disadvantage, in addition to the strict security restrictions. Security agencies claim that if fishers were allowed to use fibre boats and high-speed engines they could easily go into Sri Lankan territorial waters. The reason why such restrictions apply to artisanal boats and not mechanised boats is that, during the civil war, many artisanal fishers were involved in helping the Sri Lankan Tamils due to connections of caste and ethnicity. Fishers were involved in the supply of fuel, food, and medicine as they know the sea routes well. The difficulty in monitoring the movement of artisanal fishing boats resulted in a blanket ban on technological advancements. Fishers are also required to seek permission from the Coastal Security Group for cultural purposes, such as temple visits (Fig. 3). The officials of the Coastal Security Group argue that the entry of fishers in the islands creates security issues as the Gulf of Mannar islands are used as transit points for the trafficking of drugs and other contraband. The Coastal Security Group has recently imposed security re­ strictions to visit the Gulf of Mannar islands, which were under the control of the Forest Department in the past. There is now a three-tier security arrangement. The Coastal Security Group controls the area from the shore to a distance of 12 nautical miles, the area from 12 nautical miles to 200 nautical miles is under the control of the Coast Guard, and the international waters beyond 200 nautical miles fall under the jurisdiction of the Indian Navy. After the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park was established in 1986, the islands came under the control of the Forest Department. Since the Gulf of Mannar islands are within 3 nautical miles, the Coastal Security Group claims jurisdic­ tion over this territory. The trans-boundary context of marine conservation combined with 7

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ignoring the real drivers of conservation failure such as the trawlers and commercial fisheries. MPAs have been shown to serve as an ecological fix in order to facilitate capitalist production (Ramesh & Rai, 2017). This study describes how MPAs allow the state to achieve its security out­ comes even as it struggles to meet its conservation goals. Not only does the presence of the MPA allow the state to continue its capital accumulation efforts in the form of mechanised fisheries but also facilitates a coercive securitisation of the coast in the name of national sovereignty. The accumulation, securitisation, and conservation goals of the state cohere around the islands of the Gulf of Mannar MPA. There have been no conservation gains; rather the intensification of fisheries in areas outside the MPA has resulted in reduction in fish populations, seabed habitat destruction due to bottom trawling, and increased bycatch of endangered and other threatened species. The stated goals of the original UNDP project to intervene in development and ecological mitigation in conflict areas have not been met; on the contrary, the militarisation of conservation has produced uneven development and marginalisation of the poorest fishers. The location of the conservation area along an international border and the trafficking of sea cucumbers and narcotics help security actors to stake territorial claims. These are characteristics of frontier zones, where crisis becomes a powerful tech­ nology of the state (Korf & Raeymaekers, 2013). The materiality of the sea and the conservation-security nexus results in the creation of a vi­ olent maritime space.

Fig. 3. Coastal Security Group personnel, on the left, overseeing temple pro­ ceedings on Nallathanni theevu in the Gulf of Mannar. Fishers opine that they are even unable to carry out their cultural practice without hindrance of con­ servation and security agencies. Photo dated 23 February 2017.

the history of a bloody civil war has resulted in deep impacts on the lives of local people. The conservation zone was declared in the middle of the war, and as this study shows, it has relied heavily on the vast security apparatus for its management. Coercive state practices that commenced around the civil war and that were sustained through fear and intimi­ dation, enabled the state to impose restrictions on a range of livelihood practices, resulting in insecurities among the local fishers.

Funding Rahul Muralidharan was supported by the Rufford Small Grants (grant number 18975-1) and an ATREE student fellowship. Nitin D. Rai was supported by the Greenmentality project funded by the Research Council of Norway (grant number 250975).

7. Conclusion The Sri Lankan civil war and its social and political consequences on the neighbouring Indian state of Tamil Nadu due to ethnic ties is a fitting case of the nexus of conservation and security in a marine context. Whether it is conservation motivated territorialisation of the Gulf of Mannar islands or the state’s political economy prioritising increased fish production, the artisanal fishers who have been traditionally dependent on the near-shore resources are disproportionately affected due to these interventions. We discuss the politics of conservation, exploitation, and securitisation around sea cucumbers to highlight the uneasy alliance among the different arms of the state — all of which target artisanal fishing communities. The historical trade of sea cucumbers between India and Sri Lanka turned into a security concern when the same sea routes began to be used for trafficking weapons, narcotics, essentials, and other contraband during the three-decade long civil war. The government-imposed ban on sea cucumbers was not based on conservation justifications alone. The security apparatus of the state originally established in the background of the civil war to check collusion between fishers, smugglers, and militants appropriated conservation narratives and practices to enable their operations. Artisanal fishers identified as sympathetic to the Sri Lankan Tamil cause were denied rights to the islands and remain most affected by security practices even as intensive commercial fishing continues with state support in the coastal seas. The violent political conflict and the resulting securitisation recruited conservation premises to control and contain fishing pop­ ulations. Political ecologists have shown how conservation militarised in defence of wildlife protection creates violence. We discuss how political conflict in a wider geography motivates coercive conservation efforts. Trans-boundary marine environments are particularly difficult to govern for conservation or securitisation due to the dynamic nature of the seascape. The challenges of governing marine spaces have motivated the security arm of the state to function as an apparatus that controls and contains fishing communities. Conservation and security goals are aligned to target marginal sections of the local population while

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