Loading…
The Ministry of Earth Sciences released the National Report on Deep-Sea and Distant-Water Fishery Resources of the Indian EEZ, marking the Silver Jubilee of the Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE) at Kochi.
The report compiles nearly four decades of oceanographic research and three decades of systematic surveys across India's 2.37 million sq km Exclusive Economic Zone, drawing on more than 400 cruises since the early 1990s under the Marine Living Resources Programme aboard FORV Sagar Sampada.
It assesses the mesopelagic 'twilight zone' between 200 and 1,000 metres — lanternfishes, deep-sea shrimps and cephalopods whose nightly vertical migration drives the ocean's biological carbon pump — and identifies substantial but underexploited deep-sea demersal stocks beyond 200 metres.
Distant-water data covers tunas, billfishes, sharks, oceanic squids and Antarctic krill, while biodiversity hotspots documented include Kollam Bank, Angria Bank, the off-Mangalore deep-sea slope, the terrace off Trivandrum, and the Lakshadweep and Andaman-Nicobar Islands.
The report positions fisheries acoustics, environmental DNA, autonomous observing platforms, satellite data, artificial intelligence and ecosystem modelling as the basis for marine spatial planning, supporting India's Vision 2047 Blue Economy goals and UN Sustainable Development Goal 14.
Sunlight reaches only the top couple of hundred metres of the ocean. Below that, from about 200 to 1,000 metres, lies the mesopelagic or twilight zone — too dark for photosynthesis, but far from empty. It holds enormous populations of small fish such as lanternfishes, along with deep-sea shrimps and cephalopods. Every night these animals rise towards the surface to feed and return to depth before dawn, in what is the largest animal migration on the planet by biomass. That daily commute is what the report calls the biological carbon pump. Carbon fixed by plankton at the surface is eaten near the surface and excreted, or the animal dies, hundreds of metres down — so carbon that would otherwise cycle back into the atmosphere is delivered to the deep ocean, where it can stay for centuries. This is why a fisheries report is also a climate document: the same mesopelagic stocks that look like an untapped protein resource are the machinery of a carbon sink, and the trade-off between harvesting them and leaving them to pump carbon is precisely what an assessment like this has to inform.
Simple Analogy: Imagine a night shift that clocks in at the surface, eats, and clocks out a kilometre down — carrying the day's carbon with it every single night. Fish the night shift out, and the delivery service stops.
Coordinates the Marine Living Resources Programme — surveying and assessing India's marine living resources, mapping their distribution, and studying how they respond to changes in the physical environment. It published this report during its Silver Jubilee
India's flagship deep-sea programme covering deep-sea mining technology, manned submersible development, ocean climate advisory services, deep-sea biodiversity exploration and an offshore energy and desalination component; its Director attended the report's release
The national organisation for survey and assessment of India's marine fishery resources; it is the other main deep-sea survey institution alongside CMLRE, but sits under the fisheries administration rather than earth sciences
Survey, assess and study India's marine living resources and their response to the physical environment
Key: Coordinated by CMLRE and executed largely from FORV Sagar Sampada; more than 400 cruises since the early 1990s supplied the data behind this report
Build India's capability to explore and use deep-ocean resources and to understand ocean-climate links
Key: Approved by the CCEA on 16 June 2021 with an outlay of Rs 4,077 crore over five years; its manned component, Samudrayaan, is developing the Matsya-6000 submersible to carry three people to 6,000 metres
Holistic development of the fisheries sector, including the welfare of fishers
Key: Implemented by the Department of Fisheries from September 2020 for five years, FY 2020-21 to FY 2024-25, with a total investment of Rs 20,050 crore — Central share Rs 9,407 crore, State share Rs 4,880 crore and beneficiaries' contribution Rs 5,763 crore. It is the deployment arm of the Blue Economy where CMLRE's report is the knowledge arm
The surveys span both of India's flanking seas and reach well beyond them. On the west coast, the Kollam Bank off Kerala and the terrace off Trivandrum lie on the continental slope of the Arabian Sea, while Angria Bank is a submerged plateau off the Maharashtra coast and the off-Mangalore deep-sea slope lies between them off Karnataka. The Lakshadweep group sits further out in the Arabian Sea, and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands mark the eastern limit of India's EEZ in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. Cruises also ran south into the Southern Ocean off Antarctica, where Antarctic krill is the resource of interest — placing part of the assessment outside India's EEZ altogether, in waters governed by international arrangements rather than national jurisdiction.
Defines the Exclusive Economic Zone as an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea extending up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline. Within it the coastal State has sovereign rights for exploring and exploiting natural resources, living and non-living, in the water column, seabed and subsoil — and a corresponding duty to conserve and manage them. India's EEZ, about 2.37 million sq km, is the area this report assesses. Note the distinction the exam tests: the territorial sea carries full sovereignty, while the EEZ carries only sovereign rights over resources.
The report is framed as supporting Sustainable Development Goal 14, Life Below Water, and the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development — the international commitments through which national marine surveys become globally comparable.
eDNA lets scientists detect which species are present from genetic traces in a water sample, without catching anything — a major shift for deep-sea assessment, where trawl surveys are expensive, slow and destructive.
Combining acoustics, eDNA, autonomous platforms, satellite data and ecosystem models produces maps of what lives where, which is the precondition for deciding which areas to fish, which to protect and which to leave for carbon cycling.
Krill is harvested in the Southern Ocean under international arrangements rather than national jurisdiction, so distant-water fisheries raise a governance question the EEZ does not: who allocates a resource nobody owns.
The report describes deep-sea demersal stocks as substantial but underexploited. That is an economic opportunity and a conservation risk at once — deep-sea species are typically slow-growing and long-lived, so they recover from overfishing far more slowly than shelf species.
GS Paper 3 > Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation; GS Paper 1 > Geography > Oceanography
General Awareness > Science and Current Affairs
General Awareness > Science and Current Affairs
General Awareness > Current Affairs
Blue Economy, the EEZ and the Deep Ocean Mission recur in UPSC Prelims and Mains, and marine institutions appear in SSC and Railway general awareness.
The ocean layer from about 200 to 1,000 metres, below the reach of photosynthesis, holding lanternfishes, deep-sea shrimps and cephalopods.
The transfer of carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean by biological processes, driven substantially by the nightly vertical migration of mesopelagic animals.
Species living on or near the sea bed, as distinct from pelagic species of the open water column; the report assesses demersal stocks on the continental slope beyond 200 metres.
The maritime zone extending up to 200 nautical miles from the baseline in which the coastal State has sovereign rights over natural resources; India's is about 2.37 million sq km.
Genetic material shed by organisms into water or sediment, used to identify which species are present without physically capturing them.