The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute was established in the government of India on 3 February 1947 under the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare and later, in 1967, it joined the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) family and emerged as a leading tropical marine fisheries research institute in the world. The Headquarters of the ICAR-CMFRI is located in Kochi, Kerala. Initially the institute focused its research efforts on creating a strong database on marine fisheries sector by developing scientific methodologies for estimating the marine fish landings and effort inputs, taxonomy of marine organisms and the biological aspects of the exploited stocks of finfish and shellfish on which fisheries management were to be based. This focus contributed significantly to development of the marine fisheries sector from a predominantly artisanal, sustenance fishery till the early sixties to that of a complex, multi-gear, multi-species fisheries.
One of the major achievements of ICAR-CMFRI is the development and refinement of a stratified multistage random sampling method for estimation of marine fish landings in the country with a coast line of over coastline and landing centers. Institute personnel maintain the National Marine Fisheries Data Centre (NMFDC) with over 9 million catch and effort data records of more than 1000 fished species, from all maritime states of India.
The institute has four regional centres located at Mandapam, Visakhapatnam, Mangalore and Vizhinjam and seven regional stations at Mumbai, Chennai, Calicut, Karwar, Tuticorin, Veraval and Digha. There are also fifteen field centres and 2 KVKs (Ernakulam and Kavaratti, Lakshadweep) under the control of the institute. The nearly fivefold increase in marine fish production and the increasing contribution of marine fisheries to the GDP growth are supported by the robust research efforts and its impact on fisher folk, fish farmers, fisheries policy planners and managers.
Vision Sustainable marine fisheries through management intervention and enhanced coastal fish production through mariculture for improved coastal livelihoods.
Mission To develop an information based management system for changing over from open access to regulated regime in marine fisheries, augment coastal fish production through mariculture and sea ranching and restore critical marine habitats.
Mandate Monitor and assess the marine fisheries resources of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) including the impact of climate and anthropogenic activity and develop sustainable fishery management plans. Basic and strategic research in mariculture to enhance production. Act as a repository of geo-spatial information on marine fishery resources and habitats. Consultancy services; and human resource development through training, education and extension.
Objectives • Marine Fishery Resource Assessment • Productivity and Production Enhancement through Mariculture • Conservation of Marine Biodiversity • Transfer of Technology, Training and Consultancy
Major research focus and its impact on marine fisheries sector in India Support to strengthen the marine fishery management regime in India Right from its inception, CMFRI has focussed on gathering information of the marine fishery resources of India. Through its sustained efforts a database on fisheries landings and effort statistics has aided the developing effective fisheries management plans with stakeholders participation; proactive measures to ensure regulated and sustainable fisheries and aiding efforts in marine fisheries management realm by preparing policy guideline documents based on the research programmes of the institute. Notably, the National policy on Marine Fisheries (NPMF) 2017 notified by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare was developed with wide stakeholders’ consultations by the institute and is a major step towards a framework for a sustainable marine fisheries development model in the country.
Marine fisheries policies for the state of Kerala & Lakshadweep Islands, Karnataka, Goa and Andhra Pradesh are formulated with the reassert and policy inputs from CMFRI scientific expert teams. The institute has also prepared a document entitled Indian Marine Fisheries Code which guides the establishment of a sustainable marine fisheries resources management model for India in accordance with Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO's) Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries (CCRF). Other contributions of CMFRI recognized as major inputs for the national level policy making are policy guidance on Fish Aggregating Device (FAD); based on which Government of Karnataka banned an FAD assisted cuttlefish fishery that was contributing to growth and recruitment overfishing of cuttlefishes and leading to loss of livelihoods and income to local fishers, Guidance on National Plan of Action (NPOA) for sharks in India for increasing awareness of the need to ensure their sustainable exploitation and conservation, guideline on temporal and spatial measures of effective Trawl Ban for Government of Kerala, recommendation on Minimum legal size (MLS) of commercially important marine fishes aimed at restricting juvenile fishing for various coastal States (Based on which Govt. of Kerala notified MLS for 58 commercially important species in the Gazette), recommendations on use of technology in agricultural insurance’ to NITI Aayog, Guidelines for the Mariculture Policy in India etc. ICAR-CMFRI also coordinated and provided scientific inputs for India's first Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified fishery, for the short-neck clam in the Ashtamudi Lake, Kerala.
Estimation of marine fish landings The institute collects Marine Fisheries Statistics for estimating species-wise landings from all along the coast which is released every year as a booklet. CMFRI has coordinated the Marine Fisheries Census of India by Department of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries (DADF) during the years 2005, 2010 and 2016. The latest marine fisheries census data (2016) collected by CMFRI contains information from 882263 fisher households in 4057 villages. Details of marine fisherfolk residing in the marine fishing villages of all the 9 maritime states and 2 union territories of India, information regarding the fishing craft and fishing gears from 50 fishing harbours and 1281 fish landing centers in the country and the socio-economics were collected. Software for enabling the data entry into a database was developed in-house. The innovative and time relevant way of data entry of marine fish landings data using electronic tablets at landings centres with web based computer application in the IBM server with Oracle RDBMS for online data entry support has been developed, tested and implemented enabling swift collation and dissemination of vital fish landings statistics on a national basis. The spatial mapping of fishing grounds on a continuous basis, which will help in identifying the seasons of high abundance of spawners/juveniles and in identification of critical fishing grounds where seasonal and spatial closure of trawl fishery can be implemented is facilitated under the various projects operated by the institute. Multi-species biomass dynamic models are being developed to address the multi-species and multi-gear fisheries assessments in India.
Integration of satellite technologies into fisheries management To effectively utilize satellite technology for managing marine fisheries sector the institute has joined hands with the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) with the aim to identify and forecast Potential Fishing Zones (PFZ). GIS based resource mapping of distribution and abundance of fin fishes and shellfishes off the Indian coast and using the GIS technology for mapping of marine fish landing centres. The CMFRI Special Publication on `Handbook on Application of GIS as a Decision Support Tool in Marine Fisheries’ in Marine Fisheries and the GIS based inventory of 1278 marine fish landing centres of Indian coast prepared by CMFRI, was sought by Indian Navy. The types of fishing activity, seasonality of fishing and the extent of fishing operations from each fishing centres are available in this database.
Identification of seasonal peak spawning grounds and seasonal juvenile abundance grounds, mapping of fishing area for newly targeted and emerging resources such as ‘bull’s eye’ to understand its spatial distribution patterns, trawling footprint analysis and GIS based site selection and mapping of natural seed resources for mariculture are now possible due to the application of this technology. In addition, in collaboration with INCOIS the institute carried out satellite telemetry studies to analyse migratory patterns of tunas in the Indian seas by using pop-up satellite tags.
Ecosystem Approach to Fisheries Management (EAFM) CMFRI's initiative in promoting EAFM is based on the fact that the country needs to shift from traditional single species management approach to a more advanced one addressing ecological and human well-being with good governance. An Ecosystem Based Fisheries Management (EBFM) model has been successfully developed for the South-west, northwest, Gulf of Mannar coasts and can be used to facilitate well managed fisheries.
Addressing climate change concerns in the marine fisheries sector Climate change is now recognized as one of the greatest long-term challenges to marine ecosystems and fisheries. Under the National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA), a network project of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), to deal with climate change in marine ecosystem CMFRI has focussed on preparing the marine fisheries sector to minimize the impact of climate change. It is also aimed at addressing the critical knowledge gaps about climate change impacts, improve monitoring and translating the knowledge into active management responses. Relationship between temperature and abundance of resources such as threadfin breams and the effect of projected rise in sea surface temperature due to climate change by modeling the biomass dynamics using a variant of SEAMICE models for the south Kerala region has been done. The carbon foot print, blue carbon potential of mangroves and sea grass and life cycle assessment of fishing operations indicated that fishing operations for Kerala coast had highest emissions during harvest phase followed by post-harvest and pre-harvest phases. Multivendor e-commerce portal and Mobile App, low cost feeds for Integrated Multi-trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) and Participatory mode of coastal vulnerable resource mapping are some other initiatives to improve the adaptive capacity and secure resilience for the stakeholders from adverse impacts of climate change. Through adoption of a number of coastal villages and converting it as "Climate Smart Villages" and organizing awareness programmes and field demonstrations on technologies and practice for climate change adaptation and mitigation, livelihood sustainability enhancement through provision of know- how and do –on alternative income generating activities are some of the other interventions carried out by CMFRI.
Mobile app for online fish sale