over the Indian Ocean.

There's a battle going on out here.

It's not a battle for

land or for people. This is a battle about fish.

One fishermen was killed and five others injured after Sri Lankan Navy opened fire near an island off the

Tamil Nadu coast.

On one side you have Sri Lankan fishermen in these coastal

villages, where fishing is the economic lifeblood. And on the other side you have

their counterparts Indian fishermen in these villages along the southeastern

coast of India.

On a clear day you can see across this

strait, it's only 20 kilometers or so. And out here on the water there's an

invisible line that marks where India's territorial waters end and where Sri Lanka's begin.

Underneath this border there's treasure — not gold, but seafood.

The communities on either side of this strait used to be friends, but now

they're locked in conflict. One side has bigger, faster boats. The other side has a

well-armed Navy equipped with war boats that they're using to patrol this border.

This is the fish war between India and Sri Lanka.

This is Rama's bridge.

You look across, you can see Sri Lanka.

One legend goes that

the Hindu god Rama hired an army of monkey men to build a bridge from India

to Sri Lanka, so that he could go in and rescue his wife from a demon king.

Geology suggests that there indeed may have been a walkable land bridge here,

until a few thousand years ago when it was eroded back into the sea, erasing any

land border between modern-day India and Sri Lanka. The only border that exists

now between India and Sri Lanka is in the water. It was decided on in the '70s

and it looks like this.

This border made it officially illegal for fishermen from

either side to cross over into each other's waters to fish and it was the

start of what would eventually turn into a violent conflict.

"The injured fishermen

have been admitted to a hospital in Rameswaram."

In the 1960s India, was

facing a financial crisis and in response, the government was looking for

new ways to stimulate the economy. So they turned to seafood exports like

prawns. The Indian government gave subsidies to fishermen to buy new boats

so that they could harvest a huge number of prawns, which would feed demand all

over the world. So Indian fishermen in this town of Rameswaram cashed in on

the opportunity, dramatically ramping up their fishing activities with these new

boat is called trawlers which are able to drop nets with heavy weights on them

to rake the bottom of the seabed in search for prawns and other seafood. It's

an incredibly effective method for harvesting fish and shrimp, but these

heavy metal weights rip up the seabed, damaging the sea floor's ecosystem and

this method if uncontrolled depletes fish supplies very quickly. The Indian

fishermen quickly adopted these new boats and soon there were thousands of

these trawlers.

Armed with their new boats and tied to international demand, the Indian

fishermen aggressively fished these waters, tearing up the seafloor and

depleting much of their fisheries. By the late 1970s, the Indian fishermen needed

new waters to fish. This water border had recently been agreed upon by the two

countries, but even still the Indian fishermen began moving across it

illegally fishing in Sri Lankan waters. The massive amount of fishing

contributed to an explosion in seafood exports from India. While India was

cashing in on seafood products from Sri Lankan waters, Sri Lanka was descending

into war.

By the early 1980s, armed rebels were taking over large swaths of land in

the north of the country, trying to create a new country for the oppressed

Tamil people, the ethnic minority group that the residents of these fishing

villages identify with.

"And every day they take an oath pledging to sacrifice

their mind body and soul for Tamil Eelam, a separate state for a separate people."

It descended into a violent, long-lasting civil war that would result in over

150,000 deaths and these fishing villages in Sri Lanka were

caught right in the middle of it.

As a security precaution during the war the Sri Lankan Navy started setting up

security zones in much of the water, banning most fishing activities and

prohibiting boats with motors.

"Beaches once crammed with foreign

tourists are now patrolled by the watchful military."

All of this was done

in an attempt to weaken the Tamil rebels, but the result was a severe gutting of

the economies here, which are totally reliant on fish. The catch in these

districts declined immensely during the war and not only did this affect the

economies, but this fishing ban left Sri Lankan waters open for Indian trawlers

to fish freely.

The violent civil war and the fishing ban in Sri Lanka dragged

on through the '90s and into the early 2000's, allowing the Indian fishermen to

illegally fish these waters with little repercussion. But then everything changed.

"Tamil Tiger fighters retreat from their last stand. For now the fighting seems to

be over." The war ended and the security zones in

the water were lifted. Sri Lankans could fish freely again, breathing new life

into an economy that runs on fish. But as these fishermen went out on their boats

what they found were fleets of Indian trawlers in their waters, tearing up the

sea floor, illegally digging for seafood treasure. And these Sri Lankan fishermen

coming out of a fishing ban and a 25 year civil war, had much smaller weaker boats.

They could never compete.

This is where things really start to heat up.

Sri Lankan Navy, which had previously been fighting a war, now turned its efforts

towards cracking down on Indian fishermen that were poaching in Sri

Lankan waters. The fish wars had begun.

"Naval Command arrested four Indian

fishing poachers in Sri Lanka territorial waters."

"There are mass protests against the killing of this fisherman."

The Sri Lankan Navy came down hard, routinely

arresting Indian fishermen and detaining them, sometimes for years. Many of the

fishermen that I talked to while I was in India routinely go poaching across

the border and many of them said that they had been caught by the Navy.

When the Navy detains the fishermen, they also take their boats. They eventually

released the fishermen, but the boats remain impounded in navy bases around

the country.

Across the strait, this poaching by Indian fishermen has had

deep ramifications in these villages.

Experts estimate that the direct monetary loss to Sri Lankan fishermen

due to Indian poaching is anywhere from 16 to 56 million US dollars per year.

This conflict over seafood has turned two Tamil communities, once allies, into

enemies.

The Indian government has done little to resolve this conflict. They occasionally

step in to free a group of detained fishermen, but none of their actions have

led to a concrete solution to the conflict.

The Indian government, both national and local, seems to be turning a blind eye to

these fishermen's practice of crossing the border.

That's because these

communities are already neglected and underserved by their faraway government.

Stopping a practice that has bolstered their economy for years would create

more disdain and frustration among the people.

So not much is likely to change anytime soon and as the Navy and the fishermen

continue to spar in these waters, the real losers in this situation continue

to be these communities over here.

The people here were barred from fishing during the decades-long civil war and now they have

no chance of competing with their Indian neighbors, who have spent decades

destroying their sea beds and stealing their fish.

This was one of the most interesting places I had ever been,

going to Sri Lanka and the southern coast of India.

Got to see these really interesting places, but also seeing how important fish are to these economies.

But India and Sri Lanka aren't the only places that are affected by the increasing demand for fish.

There are a lot of different places around the world who are dealing with similar issues.

And if you want to learn more about this issue and how it plays out in other countries,

you should check out a documentary series called "Super Fish" from CuriosityStream.

CuriosityStream is a subscription streaming service that allows you to

browse a huge repository of documentaries and nonfiction films

from some of the world's best filmmakers.

You can get unlimited access to CuriosityStream starting at $2.99 a month,

but because you're a Borders fan, you can go to

curiositystream.com/borders

and enter the promo code "borders" and you'll get the first 31 days for free.

CuriosityStream does not influence our editorial process or the videos we make, but they do support us

and they do make videos like this possible, so thank you CuriosityStream.

And stay tuned for more Borders.