Integrated spatial management of marine fisheries of India for more robust stock assessments and moving towards a quota system

Abstract

In order to overcome the challenges in administering and regulating marine fisheries in the Indian EEZ under central government administration (area 1.86 million km2, which is 92% of the total 2.02 million km2), a zonal management system is proposed. Besides the Territorial Waters (TW) zones regulated by maritime states, the broad marine biogeographic area of the Indian subcontinent were divided into 4, the northwest coast (northeast Arabian Sea - NEAS), southwest coast (southeast Arabian Sea - SEAS), southeast coast (southwest Bay of Bengal - SWBOB) and the northeast coast (northwest Bay of Bengal - NWBOB). There are 13 maritime states based TW zones and 6 regional zones (4 mainland and 2 island) in this proposed plan for fisheries management. The straightening of the coastline through notified baseline points for determining the breadth of TW and EEZ has resulted in 0.11 million km2 of internal waters which are not under any regulations. All these zones are planned to be placed under co-management through specific fisheries management councils as advocated by the National Policy on Marine Fisheries 2017. Besides, the catch and effort data reporting, stock assessments and fisheries management under the new regime are highlighted. In fisheries management, a switch to a total allowable catch (TAC) and quota system is recommended. The advantages of zonal management, TAC system and fleet wise quotas are discussed.