Indian Ocean Futures

Rapid change in trade, demographics, culture and environment around the Indian Ocean demands a revaluation of how communities, sustainability and security are constituted in this globally strategically important region. Indian Ocean Futures: Communities, Sustainability and Security raises awareness of threats and opportunities beyond popular notions of communities through an examination of issues of concern to local, national, regional and transnational communities around the Indian Ocean Rim. This edited book is organized into three broad areas: the heritage and identity of communities, their sustainability and their security. The first section examines how heritage and identity are negotiated in establishing the basis of communities and public discussion of their futures. The second part explores different practices, technologies and communities of sustainability; from technologies being developed for sustainable coastal regions to the adoption of traditional practices for food management. The final section canvasses the changing landscapes and seascapes of the Indian Ocean in relation to the broad concerns of food, environmental and political security. As such, this volume offers the reader valuable engagement with the complex relations of communities and environments and key discourses shaping understandings of the future of the Indian Ocean region.

Indian Ocean studies, which once lagged behind studies of the Atlantic and the Pacific, is an important emerging academic field which has come into its own. In the next fifty years, the Indian Ocean Region will become very significant as a result of enormous demographic changes. What was the Ocean of the South is rapidly becoming the Ocean of the Centre, the Ocean of the Future. Curtin University, Western Australia, has a long and distinguished history of engagement with the Indian Ocean region and with Indian Ocean Studies, and its Australia-Asia-Pacific Institute of Curtin University continues to maintain a focus on the Indian Ocean -past, present and future. This book examines a number of themes emerging from its 2014 Conference entitled "Indian Ocean Futures", which attracted some of the best Indian Ocean region scholars. The conference connected humanities, social sciences and scientific disciplines; this book collects some of the preeminent works focused on geo-strategic, cultural, environmental security and human security themes. The book is also an important contribution to the building of academic diplomacy in the region – that is to say, it contributes to region-building by creating epistemic communities and networks between government, the private sector, and academia throughout the region. Through the pursuit of academic diplomacy, academics are capable of pursuing research goals which enhance governmental, business, and civil society objectives of the day. This book was previously published as a special issue of the Journal of the Indian Ocean Region.

On the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century that focus will fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries known as “Monsoon Asia”—which include India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania—bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan shows how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power. It is here that the fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be lost or won, and it is here that American foreign policy must concentrate if the United States is to remain relevant in an ever-changing world. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, Kaplan exposes the effects of population growth, climate change, and extremist politics on this unstable region, demonstrating why Americans can no longer afford to ignore this important area of the world.

On the world maps common in America, the Western Hemisphere lies front and center, while the Indian Ocean region all but disappears. This convention reveals the geopolitical focus of the now-departed twentieth century, but in the twenty-first century that focus will fundamentally change. In this pivotal examination of the countries known as “Monsoon Asia”—which include India, Pakistan, China, Indonesia, Burma, Oman, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Tanzania—bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan shows how crucial this dynamic area has become to American power. It is here that the fight for democracy, energy independence, and religious freedom will be lost or won, and it is here that American foreign policy must concentrate if the United States is to remain relevant in an ever-changing world. From the Horn of Africa to the Indonesian archipelago and beyond, Kaplan exposes the effects of population growth, climate change, and extremist politics on this unstable region, demonstrating why Americans can no longer afford to ignore this important area of the world.

The Indian Ocean and its Role in the Global Climate System provides an overview of our contemporary understanding of the Indian Ocean (geology, atmosphere, ocean, hydrology, biogeochemistry) and its role in the climate system. It describes the monsoon systems, Indian Ocean circulation and connections with other ocean basins. Climatic phenomena in the Indian Ocean are detailed across a range of timescales (seasonal, interannual to multi-decadal). Biogeochemical and ecosystem variability is also described. The book will provide a summary of different tools (e.g., observations, modeling, paleoclimate records) that are used for understanding Indian Ocean variability and trends. Recent trends and future projections of the Indian Ocean, including warming, extreme events, ocean acidification and deoxygenation will be detailed. The Indian Ocean is unique and different from other tropical ocean basins due to its geography. It is traditionally under-observed and understudied, yet plays a fundamental role for regional and global climate. The vagaries of the Asian monsoon affect over a billion people and a third of the global population live in the vicinity of the Indian Ocean. It is also particularly vulnerable to climate change, with robust warming and trends in heat and freshwater observed in recent decades. Advances have recently been made in our understanding of the Indian Ocean’s circulation, interactions with adjacent ocean basins, and its role in regional and global climate. Nonetheless, significant gaps remain in understanding, observing, modeling, and predicting Indian Ocean variability and change across a range of timescales. As such, this book is the perfect compendium to any researcher, student, teacher/lecturer in the fields of oceanography, atmospheric science, paleoclimate, environmental science, meteorology and geology, as well as policy managers and water resource managers. Provides interdisciplinary content with a comprehensive overview for students and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines as well as for stakeholders Presents a broad overview and background on the current state of knowledge of the variability, change, and regional impacts of the Indian Ocean Includes links to animations, slideshows, and other educational resources

This report signals a new approach to ocean monitoring and management that lays a solid base using the principles of ecology and sustainable development while transcending traditional geopolitical and disciplinary divisions. LMEs are relatively large regions, often including the territorial waters of more than one nation, thus making coordination of monitoring and management highly desirable.

This book focuses on assessing China’s international environment in the Indian Ocean including political, economic and secure environments through examining the characteristics of the international environment in the Indian Ocean. It figures out that there are four new changes and characteristics from the perspective of the current international environment in the Indian Ocean. Firstly, the turmoil in the security situation in the Indian Ocean has not been eased, but also showed signs of deterioration. Secondly, the strategic competition of the major powers in the Indian Ocean region has been exacerbated. Thirdly, the USA will remain the largest contributing variable in the international environment of the Indian Ocean in the future. Fourthly, India, a biggest country in the region, is becoming a major variable affecting the international environmental change in the Indian Ocean. This book also presents a picture of how the changes of great powers’ geo-strategic competition in the Indian Ocean affect the development of China’s BRI and believes that the Indian Ocean order will be gradually transforming from the American hegemony to the emergence of jointly governance including USA, China and India.