The Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean have been a site of much controversy over the years, where conservation issues have become entangled with political disputes. Now, the territory and its rich surrounding water are set to change hands, as the United Kingdom has agreed to transfer control to Mauritius.
Decades ago, the island’s original inhabitants were evicted to make way for a military base, but many have never stopped campaigning for their right to return. Meanwhile, refugees from elsewhere have become stranded on the largest island. And the UK and Mauritius have been locked in a dispute over the archipelago’s ownership.
Complicating matters, in 2010, the UK designated a vast ocean area around the islands as a marine protected area (MPA), banning fishing – without consulting either Mauritius or ethnic Chagossians. Earlier this year, Imran Muzaffar wrote for Dialogue Earth about how the Chagos MPA, once hailed as the world’s largest fully protected marine reserve, was later delisted from global MPA databases and cited as an egregious example of “ocean grabbing”.
On 3 October, the UK and Mauritius announced an agreement to transfer the islands to Mauritius. They also pledged to cooperate on environmental protection, tackle illegal fishing, and address other issues, “with the shared objective of securing and protecting one of the world’s most important marine environments. This will include the establishment of a Mauritian Marine Protected Area.”
Madelyn MacMurray, a researcher at the Stimson Center, highlights leaked documents suggesting that some UK diplomats viewed the original Chagos MPA as a means to block the return of the displaced Chagossians. “With the historic ruling granting sovereignty of Chagos to Mauritius, the Mauritian government must consider revising the policies for the new MPA,” she writes.
Adam Moolna, an environment researcher at Keele University in the UK, notes that “there are big environmental implications” of the change in ownership, but adds that they need not be negative: “The presence of people could cause damage, but it doesn’t need to.”
The Chagos Conservation Trust said it “welcomes the commitment to the continued protection of the unique and precious environment of the Chagos Archipelago, and the seas around them [and] will, and has always worked with every like-minded organisation, institution, community member and the wider public, and looks forward to continuing its rewilding project together with the new administration”.
However, UN experts have warned that the UK-Mauritius deal may still prevent Chagossians from returning home, a concern echoed by the Chagossian Voices group, which claims its members were not consulted in the process.