Maintaining the integrity of the regional environment is one of the most important common interests of Indian Ocean states. Monitoring and managing the environmental impacts of human activity on the Ocean is essential to the maintenance of the living resources of the Ocean, for example. Environmental security issues are extremely diverse, ranging from, for example, an industrial partner's need to secure access to resources for investment purposes, to a specific community's need to secure access to healthy and sustainable sources of food, water and shelter. Fostering inter-state cooperation in order to maximize positive management to minimize environmental insecurity is an important policy goal.