The Sea Within: Marine Tenure and Cosmopolitical Debates
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THE SEA WITHIN MARINE TENURE AND COSMOPOLITICAL DEBATES Hélène Artaud and Alexandre Surrallés editors IWGIA THE SEA WITHIN MARINE TENURE AND COSMOPOLITICAL DEBATES Copyright: the authors Typesetting: Jorge Monrás Editorial Production: Alejandro Parellada HURIDOCS CIP DATA Title: The sea within – Marine tenure and cosmopolitical debates Edited by: Hélène Artaud and Alexandre Surrallés Print: Tarea Asociación Gráfica Educativa - Peru Pages: 226 ISBN: Language: English Index: 1. Indigenous Peoples – 2. Maritime Rights Geografical area: world Editorial: IWGIA Publications date: April 2017 INTERNATIONAL WORK GROUP FOR INDIGENOUS AFFAIRS Classensgade 11 E, DK 2100 - Copenhagen, Denmak Tel: (+45) 35 27 05 00 – E-mail: [email protected] – Web: www.iwgia.org To Pedro García Hierro, in memoriam Acknowledgements The editors of this book would like to thank the authors for their rigour, ef- fectiveness and interest in our proposal. Also, Alejandro Parellada of IWGIA for the enthusiasm he has shown for our project. And finally, our thanks to the Fondation de France for allowing us, through the “Quels littoraux pour demain? [What coastlines for tomorrow?] programme to bring to fruition the reflection which is the subject of this book. Content From the Land to the Sea within – A presentation Alexandre Surrallés................................................................................................ .. 11 Introduction Hélène Artaud...................................................................................................... ....15 PART I Roots and Efficacy of Maritime Tenure Tasting the waters Discriminating Identities in the Waters of Blue Mud Bay, Australia Howard Morphy and Frances Morphy.......................................................................31 A Sensory Seascape: Eco-aesthesia and Marine Toponymy in Imrâgen Fishing Communities of Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania Hélène Artaud ..........................................................................................................49 Boundary Definition as a Basic Design Principle of Traditional Fishery Management Systems in the Pacific Islands Kenneth Ruddle................................................................................................... .....67 Linking Customary and Modern Marine Management Systems in Melanesia Shankar Aswani .......................................................................................................81 PART II The dialectic of land/sea spaces Issues about marine tenure in French Polynesia Tamatoa Bambridge........................................................................................... ......99 Mastering Territories from the Sea. The Binomial Cultural Way of Resilience of Southeast Asia’s Sea Nomads Maxime Boutry and Jacques Ivanoff....................................................................... 115 Mangrove grabbing. An exploration of changes in mangrove tenure from a political ecology perspective Marie-Christine Cormier-Salem ..............................................................................143 PART III Maritime Ontologies: from Erasure to Visibility in Public Policies Going with the flow? From beluga, eels and black sturgeon fishery to marketing conservation in the St Lawrence Estuary, Québec Sabrina Doyon.................................................................................................... ....165 Gunayala: indigenous land, sea and islands in a global world, Panama Mònica Martínez Mauri....................................................................................... ....183 The defence of Lafkenmapu: rethinking the sea from the Lafkenche communities of southern Chile’s coastal zone Fabien Le Bonniec and Ana Guevara ....................................................................203 Editors biographical note ...........................................................................................227 INTRODUCCION A TRES VOCES 11 From the Land to the Sea within – A presentation Alexandre Surrallés Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, Collège de France n 2004, the book I edited with Pedro García Hierro entitled The Land Within: Indi- Igenous Territory and the Perception of the Environment was published. The book that I am presenting in this text, reuses part of this title because its purpose pursues the same objective: to reflect on the rights of native populations to enjoy the spaces they occupy. The Sea Within also stems from the necessity to explain a certain Eurocentric bias that the articles compiled in The Land Within suggest: the idea that the territory of a people can only be a space of land. When The Land Within was published, we were asked why the exploration of particular perceptions of the territoriality of indigenous peoples carried out by the texts that formed that compendium, did not include any cases of marine tenure. We were asked whether this fixation on land, in regard to ter- ritory, did not actually reflect an outdated Western perspective, especially falling within a legal context, which may not be shared by all peoples and cultures. The answer is without doubt affirmative. Perhaps it was due to our personal experience as a lawyer and anthropologist from the Upper Amazonian area, so far from the sea, or perhaps it was because we allowed ourselves to be carried away by what, more than a decade ago, seemed to be such important territorial claims - but we did not consider the coastal populations and their territorial vision. However, the idea of territories without land was essential to outline what we proposed in The Land Within: namely that the cultural ele- ments by which a human population is linked to its location, can be very varied, even unheard of. It is to complete the project I started with Pedro García Hierro more than a decade ago that we have edited this book with Hélène Artaud. It should be noted that, on the other hand, recent texts on the rights of indigenous peoples clearly show that indigenous ownership of marine and coastal spaces must be respected. In addition, their rights to their sea spaces must be guaranteed according to local perceptions, and this is masterly described by some articles in this book. This is expressed in the 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in the articles dealing with territoriality (from 25 to 27). The UNDRIP empha- sis on coastal and maritime spaces exists to support the deep tradition of international law considering the sea to be an area of free circulation. In the origins of Indigenous peoples rights, when the lawyers and theologians of the Salamanca School in sixteen century claimed that the indigenous peoples of America were entitled to the posses- 12 THE SEA WITHIN – MARINE TENURE AND COSMOPOLITICAL DEBATES sion (dominium) of their lands, marine spaces were expressly excluded. It should be borne in mind that the School of Salamanca doctrine is considered by historians of law as the beginning of international law, advocating even human rights. Thus, the first and most important jurist from this school, Francisco de Vitoria, considers that the only right superior to the right of indigenous people to their lands is the right of transit (ius peregrinandi), which, above all, includes transit through the sea, its coasts and ports. So important was this premise that the right of transit, along with the right to trade and preach (ius negociandi and ius predicandi) were the only foundations on which to legitimise European presence in America. Since then, the sea has been a space of transit defended with arms by the incipient international community, against the whims of nations or groups who would dare to manifest some kind of right of exclusive use. Now that states are expanding the extension of territorial waters and immense ocean areas are being regulated based on environmental protection, it is time that indigenous coastal populations’ rights to the tenure of marine spaces be clearly defined. Another reason that adds to the interest of publishing the The Sea Within, in re- lation to The Land Within, arises from the feeling that the sea has become the new frontier, and perhaps the last one, of the colonial expansion of capitalism against na- tive populations. The articles that comprise the book The Land Within are concerned with the indigenous peoples of South America who mostly live in the jungle and are protected by difficult access. The harassment of these populations during the time fol- lowing the publication of The Land Within, has not only not been mitigated but has in many cases intensified. Innumerable environmental conflicts have erupted even more frequently and virulently than in the past, threatening these peoples with attempts at territorial plunder through hydroenergetic, agroindustrial, mining and oil megaprojects promoted by the South American states regardless of the political flavour of their gover- nments. Because the gravity of the situation does not allow these populations from the forests and mountains of America to let their guard down, they must today have their own organised associations, the support of public opinion and be monitored by experts of all kinds. In America, as in other parts of the world, agreement that indigenous peop- les must advocate their right to land territory is unanimous. Could the same apply to coastal populations and their right to marine possession? It seems that, for the same reasons discussed above, coastal populations have not enjoyed the same attention or been given similar support by analysts and