Exploration of Indian ocean:

Ample opportunities for India and Lanka

The Pathfinder Foundation (Colombo) and the Vivekananda International Foundation (New Delhi) proposes to cover a broad spectrum of issues and ideas relating to expanded cooperation in joint sea exploration, development and preservation of the marine resources wealth of the region.

This joint-paper is focused on long-term economic and strategic interests. It necessitates that India, Sri Lanka and Maldives get involved in intense cooperative engagement in the Indian Ocean region in a variety of activities.

India and Sri Lanka are strategically located at the crossroads within the Indian Ocean; a body of water 68.5 million sq. km in extent and the third largest of the world's oceans, after the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

Their location provides ample opportunities for the two South Asian neighbours to embark upon a cooperative approach in joint sea exploration. India has a vast coastal line of over 7,517 km, with Sri Lanka adding its coastline of 1,340 km.

The prospect becomes still more impressive, if the Maldives is included in the concept of joint exploration of their combined wealth of sea resources. However, though it is not quite clear if the Maldives is ready to fully join a broad based cooperative venture in a tri-lateral format for a variety of reasons, it has been a part of the ongoing negotiations and discussions on certain aspects of the agenda.

Notwithstanding this, it must be recognized that eventually the entire expanse of sea under our combined coastlines would assume tremendous significance, calling for closer cooperation among the States of the 'Indo-Asia Pacific region', which is set to become the future theatre of economic growth and the resultant power-play.

Sri Lanka has the potential to claim an area 20 times as large as its landmass with all the oil, gas and mineral resources in the seabed, once its claim under the Law of the Sea is recognized. Sri Lanka has to draw up a plan to develop its policies and conclude arrangements for exploration and exploitation of these natural resources for the benefit of its population.

Ongoing initiatives

A considerable amount of work in this direction has been done primarily on a bilateral basis. However, trilateral consultations on these issues commenced in 2011 at the level of National Security Advisers. These talks included the Maldives in addition to India and Sri Lanka.

The three sides agreed that in the current maritime security environment in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), it was important to raise the level of maritime cooperation between the three countries. In this context, it was also agreed to explore the possibility of expanding the scope of the initiative to include other Indian Ocean littoral states as well.

During the second NSA-level trilateral meeting in Colombo on July 8, 2013, the three sides discussed a wide range of topics including enhancing cooperation in Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) through provision of Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) services, MDA training and Merchant Ship Information System (MSIS) through software developed by India, sharing of Automatic Identification System (AIS) data; strengthening coordination of maritime Search and Rescue (SAR) including SAR training; promoting marine oil pollution response cooperation; expanding bilateral 'DOSTI' (friendship) exercises through holding of table top exercises; further enhancing sharing of information on illegal maritime activities through existing points of contact; and forming a trilateral sub-group focused on legal and policy issues related to piracy.

The roadmap for future cooperation in all these areas was also confirmed. as outlined below:Sri Lanka is an active member of a voluntary Indian maritime security initiative called 'Indian Ocean Naval Symposium' (IONS) that seeks to increase maritime co-operation among navies of the littoral states of the Indian Ocean Region by providing an open and inclusive forum for discussion of regionally relevant maritime issues.

In this context since 2010 Sri Lanka has initiated 'Galle Dialogue', an annual international conference, where issues relating to maritime domain, including maritime security are discussed by representatives of nearly 30 countries within and outside the region.

Seabed Mineral Resources. Many countries have ventured into the sea in their quest of exploiting newly discovered mineral resources that include multi-element-enriched manganese nodules and encrustations, metalliferous sediments, placer minerals including diamonds, petroleum resources and the recently discovered seafloor massive sulphides (SMS), gas hydrates and rare earth metals. Joint studies for seabed exploration on the eastern side of Sri Lanka's EEZ and around Andaman Sea of India may prove useful and could also form an area of our joint cooperation.

Maritime pollution. Maritime pollution has the ability to not only destroy the marine environment but also has considerable security implications. One of the busiest sea-lanes in the world connecting the Suez Canal with the Malacca Straits, pass through the Indian Ocean south of Sri Lankan waters. With the Indian Coast Guard being one of the few maritime agencies capable of tackling oil pollution, there is a considerable scope for promoting marine oil pollution response cooperation with Sri Lankan agencies.

A number of harmful algal blooms have been reported in various coastal waters of India during late winter monsoon and early fall inter-monsoon, which are bound to have harmful impact on the fishery sector and biochemical cycles. A joint mechanism between India and Sri Lanka to study and suggest measures to reverse this phenomenon can be extremely useful for both countries in the long run.

Island development activities. India is carrying out a number of island development activities in Andaman-Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.

Shoreline management. Under the program of shoreline management, problems of coastal erosion along various Indian coasts have been studied with the aid of extensive oceanographic data to provide solutions to the States.

Sri Lanka recently became the first nation to take measures for protection of its mangroves with active involvement of the local communities.

Drugs from the sea.A program is being implemented by India to harness the bio-active principals from the marine biota for human therapeutic purposes with several research labs and universities.

Fisheries sector. There are several contentious issues affecting maritime cooperation. Those include accidental/deliberate straying into the legally established IMBL of the two countries and also engaging in illegal fishing by fishermen of the two countries. While accidental crossing of IMBL should be handled judiciously, it is the deliberate crossing of IMBL, particularly in the Palk Bay and the Gulf of Mannar by Tamil Nadu fishermen that has become an irritant to bilateral relations.

Despite the 1974 and 1976 agreements between India and Sri Lanka that clearly demarcated the maritime borders of the two countries, Tamil Nadu fishermen maintain that they have a right to engage in fishing in the Sri Lankan waters where they have traditionally fished for many years.This is jointly written by the Pathfinder Foundation in Sri Lanka and the Vivekananda International Foundation. Readers' comments are welcome at www.pathfinderfoundation.org. You can also find us on facebook and follow us on twitter.