Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRIties up with ISRO to protect coastal wetlands

In a major attempt to build resilience against the impact of climate change, the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) and the Space Applications Centre (SAC) of ISRO have joined together to map, validate and protect smaller wetlands in the coastal region aimed at restoring them through coastal livelihood programmes. Both the organizations will develop a mobile app and a centralised web portal with a complete database of wetlands that are smaller than 2.25 hectares in the country. Such smaller wetlands cover an area of more than five lakh hectares across the country, while Kerala having as many as 2,592 smaller wetlands. As per the MoU, the two scientific institutes aim to identify and demarcate wetlands and restore the degraded wetlands through suitable livelihood options like coastal aquaculture. The app will be used for real-time monitoring of the wetlands and giving advisories to stakeholders and coastal people. The collaborative move is part of a national framework for fisheries and wetlands recently developed by the National Innovations in Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) project of CMFRI.