Conservation, intensification and securitization: the political ecology of marine conservation on the Tamil Nadu coast, India

by

Rahul Muralidharan

Ph.D. Scholar, ATREE

Date & Time: April 8, 2022, 11 am

Abstract

Marine conservation policy and practice has framed artisanal fisheries as being inimical to biodiversity conservation. Such discourses are used to criminalise and displace artisanal fishers from key fishing grounds. The state prioritizes the coast for capital accumulation through resource extraction, marine biodiversity conservation, and securing territories along national borders. I studied the outcomes of conservation, intensification, and securitization efforts on the coast. I investigated the discursive and material outcomes of how the state’s conception and practice of marine conservation result in conflicts that often disproportionately affect artisanal fishing communities and biodiversity.

I conducted long-term fieldwork using mixed-method data collection in the villages bordering the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu. I draw on a political ecology framework that uses power as an analytic to study nature-society relations. The state is disadvantaged in marine environments as the fluid and material nature of the sea makes it dynamic in terms of geopolitical and territorial control. By highlighting the material qualities of the sea, I explore the state’s interventions through its governance and the outcomes on people and wildlife.

I first analyse the effect of state-aided fisheries development due to technological intensification and the conflict between artisanal and mechanized fishing practices in the Palk Bay. Technology-based interventions and fisheries intensification by the state have not only eroded the fishing commons and changed labour relations but also the practice of fishing itself. Next, I 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. Using the case of sea cucumber trafficking in the Gulf of Mannar, I show how various state actors converge around the nexus of conservation and security in criminalising artisanal practice. Finally, I explore the outcomes of fisheries intensification and conservation-security nexus in the Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar by analysing the conflicts between humpback dolphins and artisanal fisheries. The humpback dolphins not only reduce the catch of fish but also damage the fishing gear in the process causing an economic loss for the artisanal fishers. 

Conservation, intensification, and securitization has led to the spatial and technological transformation of artisanal fisheries, alienating fishers from sea spaces that are critical for their livelihoods. There has been a breakdown of local institutions and resistance, displacement and eviction from fishing grounds, and the loss of autonomy over near-shore resources and spaces due to the capital accumulation priorities of the state. Despite protection efforts in the marine protected area, commercial fisheries detrimental to biodiversity continue, allowing 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. The changing relationships and the conflicts between dolphins and fishers are political even as they are material and are a consequence of state interventions.   

Conservation policy and practice needs to take into consideration the history of artisanal fisheries transformation due to state-driven fisheries development and intensification efforts along with enclosing spaces through conservation and security measures. Safeguarding near-shore spaces is critical to support artisanal fisheries, as it provides employment, livelihoods and also as an accessible and inexpensive source of nutrition supplied through fish. I contribute to political ecology literature by illustrating the nexus of conservation-intensification-securitisation in a marine context and its disproportionate outcomes on artisanal fishing communities and biodiversity. The fluid materiality of the sea deeply influences interactions among the various human and non-human actors, and is essential to understanding the political ecology of marine conservation. 

Tea/coffee will be served downstairs at 10:30 am.