Sea-Locked: The Cascading Effects of Seaborne Challenges to Human Security in Madagascar

Abstract

This chapter presents a ‘wicked deadlock’ between human insecurity, underdevelopment, and unsustainability against the background of a more turbulent ocean environment, which can be best illustrated with the ongoing seaborne challenges on the island of Madagascar, especially those engendered by sea-originated nature hazards and man-caused maritime disruptions. It first investigates what human security means in respect of Madagascar’s position as both one of the least-developed island nations and the frontier of ocean sustainability. Then it examines how the worsening of human insecurity on the island has been accelerated recently in light of climatic and socio-ecological changes from the sea. The human security emergencies the island is confronting might have rooted partly in its oceanographic peculiarities, but they warn the world of a possible failing scenario of the sustainability-security nexus, which might have larger implications that go beyond Madagascar’s coastlines and reach to other oceanic communities.