The “Malabar” naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal came to an end earlier this week with a close formation drill involving Indian aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya, the US flat-top Nimitz, and Japan’s new helicopter carrier, the JS Izumo. The expansive scope and complexity of the engagement led many to portray Malabar 2017 as a maritime response to China’s aggression in Dokalam where the Indian Army and People’s Liberation Army troops remain locked in a tense stalemate.
Indeed, with over 20 ships, including two submarines and over 100 aircraft and helicopters involved in complex manoeuvres, the strategic messaging to China seemed more than clear. Notably, Indian commentators cast Malabar as a strategic precursor to a more proactive sea-denial strategy aimed at challenging People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) ships and submarines in the Indian Ocean.
In the run-up to Malabar, the media had reported a “surge” in Chinese naval presence in the subcontinental littorals. PLAN units prowling India’s near-seas reportedly included the Luyang III class destroyers, hydrographic research vessels, and an intelligence-gathering ship, Haiwingxing, presumably to keep track of naval ships taking part in the trilateral exercises. But Indian analysts seemed more distressed by the reported presence of a Chinese conventional submarine in the Indian seas, confirmed by the docking of the Chongmingdao, a submarine support vessel, in Karachi last month.
For many Indian observers, the emphasis on anti-submarine warfare (ASW) exercises in Malabar is a sign of India’s growing willingness to leverage its maritime partnerships in Asia to counter PLAN operations in the Indian Ocean. Not surprisingly, much of the commentary in the Indian media highlighted exercises involving P-8I and P-8A reconnaissance aircraft, MiG-29K fighters and Japanese ASW helicopters, lending credence to accounts that an Indian “sea-denial” strategy was at work in the Bay of Bengal.
Yet, there is something essentially flawed about the idea that Indian naval power can prevent Chinese warships and submarines from accessing India’s near-seas. Modern-day trading nations regard the oceans as a shared global common, with equal opportunity rights for all user states. Consequently, unless a sea-space is a site of overlapping claims (as in the case of the South China Sea) or a contested enclave in a geopolitically troubled spot (as the Persian Gulf), no coastal state ever actively denies another the use of the high seas.
This balance only changes during war, when navies seek to block adversaries from entering critical sea spaces in the contested littorals. During peace-time operations, however, maritime forces enjoy assured access to the seas that lie beyond national territorial waters (even if a coastal state insists on prior notification).
Given Beijing’s key role in the politics and geoeconomics of the Indian Ocean region, a peacetime plan to deny its warships entry into India’s surrounding seas is unlikely to succeed. With the PLAN expanding its diplomatic engagements along the Indian Ocean rim, many regional states have been welcoming of Beijing’s maritime initiatives and investments in the Indian Ocean. India’s plans to constrain Chinese naval power in South Asia are bound to meet with regional opposition.
New Delhi, in fact, might do well to take a leaf out of Beijing’s maritime playbook by leveraging naval operations for geopolitical purposes. In recent years, the PLAN has sought to project power in the Indian Ocean region through a constant naval presence in India’s near-seas. By refusing to accept the Indian Ocean as an Indian backwater, it has made successful inroads into India’s geopolitical sphere of influence. India too must now resort to a strategy of counter-power projection by expanding the scope of its naval deployments in the South China Sea, long considered a Chinese preserve.
Raising the tempo of Indian naval operations in South-East Asia does not mean challenging China’s naval might in the Western Pacific. By gradually expanding security presence along the critical sea lanes of the Western Pacific, the Indian Navy must plan to use the South China Sea’s geopolitically sensitive spaces for the strategic power projection.
Such a strategy is bound to have a deterrent effect on China’s naval posture in the Indian Ocean region. Beijing’s constraints in opposing Indian maritime presence in the Western Pacific are similar to New Delhi’s limitations in the Indian Ocean, where the Indian Navy has struggled to offer push-back to China.
What’s different is that Beijing’s political and territorial ambitions in the South China Sea make it far more sensitive to naval forays by unfriendly states. After an arbitral tribunal’s ruling in July last year invalidated many of China’s historical rights within the nine-dash line, Beijing has been extremely cagey about perceived challenges to its authority in the waters of the South China Sea.
China’s vulnerability in its near-seas must be taken advantage of by India. To challenge PLAN incursions into the Indian Ocean, the Indian Navy must plan for counter-presence in China’s near-seas, where Beijing cannot prove a territorial infringement, and yet feel the pinch of a perceived violation of its political sphere of influence.
India’s maritime planners know well that a nuanced high-seas presence in the Western Pacific is unlikely to ever cross the threshold of provocation which could lead to full-fledged conflict with China. Nagging Indian naval presence in the South China Sea is better suited to signal Indian resolve than any attempt to deny PLAN assets access into maritime South Asia.
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- Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund.
- LEAF is supported by transnational corporations (TNCs) like Unilever plc, Amazon.com, Inc, Nestle, Airbnb, Inc as well as Emergent, a US-based non-profit.
- The world lost more than 10 million hectares of primary tropical forest cover last year, an area roughly the size of Switzerland.
- Ending tropical and subtropical forest loss by 2030 is a crucial part of meeting global climate, biodiversity and sustainable development goals. Protecting tropical forests offers one of the biggest opportunities for climate action in the coming decade.
- Tropical forests are massive carbon sinks and by investing in their protection, public and private players are likely to stock up on their carbon credits.
- The LEAF coalition initiative is a step towards concretising the aims and objectives of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) mechanism.
- REDD+ was created by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It monetised the value of carbon locked up in the tropical forests of most developing countries, thereby propelling these countries to help mitigate climate change.
- It is a unique initiative as it seeks to help developing countries in battling the double-edged sword of development versus ecological commitment.
- The initiative comes at a crucial time. The tropics have lost close to 12.2 million hectares (mha) of tree cover last year according to global estimates released by Global Forest Watch.
- Of this, a loss of 4.2 mha occurred within humid tropical primary forests alone. It should come as no surprise that most of these lost forests were located in the developing countries of Latin America, Africa and South Asia.
- Brazil has fared dismally on the parameter of ‘annual primary forest loss’ among all countries. It has lost 1.7 mha of primary forests that are rich storehouse of carbon. India’s estimated loss in 2020 stands at 20.8 kilo hectares.
- Between 2002-2020, Brazil’s total area of humid primary forest reduced by 7.7 per cent while India’s reduced by 3.4 per cent.
- Although the loss in India is not as drastic as in Brazil, its position is nevertheless precarious. For India, this loss is equivalent to 951 metric tonnes worth carbon dioxide emissions released in the atmosphere.
- It is important to draw comparisons between Brazil and India as both countries have adopted a rather lackadaisical attitude towards deforestation-induced climate change. The Brazilian government hardly did anything to control the massive fires that gutted the Amazon rainforest in 2019.
- It is mostly around May that forest fires peak in India. However, this year India, witnessed massive forest fires in early March in states like Odisha, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh and Mizoram among others.
- The European Union’s Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service claimed that 0.2 metric tonnes of carbon was emitted in the Uttarakhand forest fires.
- Implementation of the LEAF Coalition plan will help pump in fresh rigour among developing countries like India, that are reluctant to recognise the contributions of their forest dwelling populations in mitigating climate change.
- With the deadline for proposal submission fast approaching, India needs to act swiftly on a revised strategy.
- Although India has pledged to carry out its REDD+ commitments, it is impossible to do so without seeking knowledge from its forest dwelling population.
Context:-
At the recently concluded Leaders’ Summit on Climate in April 2021, Lowering Emissions by Accelerating Forest Finance (LEAF) Coalition, a collective of the United States, United Kingdom and Norway governments, came up with a $1 billion fund plan that shall be offered to countries committed to arrest the decline of their tropical forests by 2030.
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]What is LEAF Coalition?
Why LEAF Coalition?
Brazil & India
According to the UN-REDD programme, after the energy sector, deforestation accounts for massive carbon emissions — close to 11 per cent — in the atmosphere. Rapid urbanisation and commercialisation of forest produce are the main causes behind rampant deforestation across tropical forests.
Tribes, Forests and Government
Disregarding climate change as a valid excuse for the fires, Indian government officials were quick to lay the blame for deforestation on activities of forest dwellers and even labelled them “mischievous elements” and “unwanted elements”.
Policy makers around the world have emphasised the role of indigenous tribes and local communities in checking deforestation. These communities depend on forests for their survival as well as livelihood. Hence, they understand the need to protect forests. However, by posing legitimate environmental concerns as obstacles to real development, governments of developing countries swiftly avoid protection of forests and rights of forest dwellers.
For instance, the Government of India has not been forthcoming in recognising the socio-economic, civil, political or even cultural rights of forest dwellers. According to data from the Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs in December, 2020 over 55 per cent of this population has still not been granted either individual or community ownership of their lands.
To make matters worse, the government has undertaken systematic and sustained measures to render the landmark Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 ineffective in its implementation. The Act had sought to legitimise claims of forest dwellers on occupied forest land.
Various government decisions have seriously undermined the position of indigenous people within India. These include proposing amendments to the obsolete Indian Forest Act, 1927 that give forest officials the power to take away forest dwellers’ rights and to even use firearms with impunity.
There is also the Supreme Court’s order of February, 2019 directing state governments to evict illegal encroachers of forest land or millions of forest dwellers inhabiting forests since generations as a measure to conserve wildlife. Finally, there is the lack of data on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) deaths among the forest dwelling population;
Tardy administration, insufficient supervision, apathetic attitude and a lack of political intent defeat the cause of forest dwelling populations in India, thereby directly affecting efforts at arresting deforestation.
Way Forward
Tuntiak Katan, a global indigenous leader from Ecuador and general coordinator of the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities, aptly indicated the next steps at the Climate Summit:
“The first step is recognition of land rights. The second step is the recognition of the contributions of local communities and indigenous communities, meaning the contributions of indigenous peoples.We also need recognition of traditional knowledge practices in order to fight climate change”
Perhaps India can begin by taking the first step.