Encountering the military-environmental complex: ten years since the creation of the Chagos marine protected area

ABSTRACT

This Encounter describes some of the events that led up to the creation of the Chagos Marine Protected Area (MPA) on 1 April 2010. It reflects on the role of social scientists in opposing militarism and the military-environmental complex.

KEYWORDS:

• Military-environmental complex
• militarism
• environmentalism
• human rights
• Chagos Islands
• Diego Garcia

Disclosure statement

The author previously volunteered with the UK Chagos Support Association.

Notes

1. Chagos is governed by the UK as the British Indian Ocean Territory. However, the islands are claimed by Mauritius, a position supported by the United Nations General Assembly and upheld in a recent non-binding ruling from the International Court of Justice.

2. The CEN included a number of organizations (the Chagos Conservation Trust, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Royal Society, Pew Environment, Linnean Society, Marine Conservation Society, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Blue Marine Foundation, and the Zoological Society of London) and one named individual, Dr. Charles Sheppard.

3. A no-take MPA is one that prohibits all forms of fishing, including sustainable, traditional, artisanal, and subsistence fishing.

4. During this period, the Chagos Islanders were waiting for the European Court of Human Rights to hear their case that the UK government had acted illegally in expelling them from their homeland.

5. Sarah Light (2014) describes the military-environmental complex as encompassing military interests, private finance, and technology companies, as well as academics. In this Encounter, I suggest that the relationship extends to encompass conservationist organizations as well.

6. As others have noted, this drive to seclude Chagos even at the expense of the Chagossians’ rights had echoes of the generic (and controversial) practice of ‘fortress conservation’ (De Santo, Jones, and Miller 2011).