Environment and Disaster Management › Protected areas and habitats
हिन्दी — Read in HindiMarine and coastal ecosystems
Coasts and seas as ecosystems: mangroves, seagrass, estuaries and lagoons, coastal regulation and erosion, marine protected areas and the treaties for the high seas. Prelims has asked what blue carbon is and where India has coral reefs.
Foundation note: Coral reefs of India
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2026: why mangroves matter for climate resilience
- Prelims 2016: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB)
Showing 6 of 7 articles, those that changed from 1 July to 30 September 2026.Show all
Fisheries and the deep sea
National report on deep-sea fishery resources
Copy link to National report on deep-sea fishery resourcesPrelims and Mains
The national report on deep sea fishery resources is the Ministry of Earth Sciences' account of the fish in India's deep water, below the reach of light.
- The mesopelagic zone, 200 to 1,000 metres down, holds lanternfishes, deep sea shrimps and squids, most of the ocean's fish by weight.
- The banks and slopes that hold them are the ones a fleet could strip.
- India's research vessel Sagar Sampada has surveyed its deep water for three decades.
What changed
20 Aug 2026BriefThe Ministry of Earth Sciences released a national report on deep sea fishery resources, drawing on the cruises of Sagar Sampada. It flags Kollam Bank, Angria Bank, the Mangalore slope, the Thiruvananthapuram terrace, Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as vulnerable areas. PIB, 20 Aug 2026: National report on deep-sea fishery resources and marine hotspots (opens in a new tab)
Marine fish stock accounts
Copy link to Marine fish stock accountsPrelims and Mains
Marine fish stock accounts apply natural capital accounting, which records natural assets and their depletion, to India's marine fish stocks.
- Gross domestic product (GDP) misses depletion: a fishery counts in GDP as the fish landed, not as the stock left behind.
- The United Nations System of Environmental Economic Accounting is the framework, and the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) is testing it, so that what a fleet takes can be set against what the taking costs.
Judge the stock
Compare current landings with ten years of landing data
Resource rent
Income left after labour, costs, depreciation and a normal return on vessels
Discount
Future rents brought to present value at a 2% real rate
Asset account
Shows whether the stock is maintained, depleted or regenerating
What changed
31 Aug 2026BriefMoSPI set out how it would build natural capital and climate risk accounts for the blue economy, starting with marine fish stocks; the method is in the figure. The Hindu, 31 Aug 2026: India's plan to begin natural-capital and climate-risk accounting of its blue economy | Explained (opens in a new tab)
Coasts under pressure
Great Nicobar project
Copy link to Great Nicobar projectPrelims and Mains
The Great Nicobar project is a plan for an International Container Transshipment Port at Galathea Bay, a greenfield joint use airport, a township and a power plant on Great Nicobar Island.
- It covers 166.1 sq km of the 921 sq km island.
Two figures for the tribal reserve
| Government statement | Tribal reserve land in the project |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 7.11 sq km |
| 1 May 2026 | 84.1 sq km |
Why the island matters
- The island is a biodiversity hotspot and home to the Shompen, a particularly vulnerable tribal group.
- The giant leatherback turtle nests at Galathea Bay, whose wildlife sanctuary was denotified in 2021 to make way for the port.
- The island is seismically active and subsided in the 2004 earthquake.
- Island coasts are zoned under the Island Coastal Regulation Zone framework, in which category IA is the most restrictive.
What changed
7 Aug 2026newly added
- The Zoological Survey of India records a reef of 116 hectares with more than 100 species of reef building coral in Galathea Bay, while the 2023 coastal maps of the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management show no coral there.
- A site with coral reef falls in the most protected coastal category, where a port cannot be built.
- The submission that the bay is a lower category was central to the National Green Tribunal dismissing objections in February 2026.
Mains: a mapping decision, and not an environmental argument, settled what the project may legally do.
Show history (1 other update)
12 Jun 2026
- The Zoological Survey of India chose four west coast sites to move coral and giant clam colonies from the port area, both Schedule I species.
- A Wildlife Institute of India survey found leatherback nests at Galathea Bay.
- The government now says 84.1 sq km of the project falls in tribal reserves, against its 2023 figure of 7.11 sq km.
The Indian Express, 12 Jun 2026: 4 sites on Nicobar west coast identified for coral translocation, says Zoological Survey of India (opens in a new tab) · Frontline, 8 Jun 2026: Great Nicobar's blueprint for 'development at any cost' (opens in a new tab)
National Coastal Mission 2.0
Copy link to National Coastal Mission 2.0Prelims
National Coastal Mission 2.0 is a Central Sector Scheme of the Environment Ministry for the coast, running to 2030 to 31.
- It covers nine coastal States and four Union Territories.
- Its work is vulnerability assessment, ecosystem restoration, pollution management and biodiversity conservation.
What changed
30 Sep 2026BriefThe Ministry released the scheme's guidelines. PIB, 30 Sep 2026: Union Environment Minister Shri Bhupender Yadav launches Guidelines for National Coastal Mission 2.0 (opens in a new tab)
Mangroves
MISHTI
Copy link to MISHTIPrelims and Mains
MISHTI, the Mangrove Initiative for Shoreline Habitats and Tangible Incomes, was launched on World Environment Day 2023 to restore about 540 sq km of mangroves along the coast.
- It is funded through the National CAMPA fund, with States planting and communities earning from the restored belts.
- Mangroves grow where the tide meets fresh water; a few, as at Guneri in Kachchh, Gujarat's first Biodiversity Heritage Site, grow inland away from the sea.
What changed
10 Jul 2026BriefThe governing body of the National Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) extended MISHTI by three years to 2029 and raised its outlay to ₹600 crore. It moved the scheme to a landscape based approach to coastal restoration. PIB, 10 Jul 2026: Four new Wildlife and Forestry Conservation Projects for Dolphins, Snow Leopards, Wild Water Buffalo and Indian Rhinoceros approved by GB CAMPA (opens in a new tab)
India's mangroves: what they are worth and what they lose
Copy link to India's mangroves: what they are worth and what they losePrelims and Mains
Blue carbon is the carbon stored by coastal ecosystems such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass, in the standing wood and in the waterlogged sediment below.
Sediments76%
Vegetation24%
What a mangrove holds
- A lack of oxygen keeps the sediment's carbon from rotting, so mangrove soil holds its carbon only as long as it stays wet and undug.
- Total Economic Value is an ecosystem's use values plus its non use values, such as coastal protection and the worth of keeping it in existence.
- A forest enters a planning decision only once someone has worked that value out.
Where India's mangroves are
- Pichavaram in Tamil Nadu, between the Vellar and Coleroon estuaries, is one of India's largest mangrove forests.
- West Bengal holds the largest share of India's mangrove cover, 42.45 per cent, almost all of it in the Sundarbans.
- There the forest is being converted to fish ponds known locally as bheries.
What changed
25 Jul 2026
- A survey of ten locations found more than 600 hectares of Sundarbans mangrove converted into bheries, cleared from inside so that the forest still looks dense from the water.
The Hindu, 25 Jul 2026: Will restore mangroves lost to encroachments: Minister (opens in a new tab)
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2021: what blue carbon is
Also filed elsewhere
- India's deep sea mining programme · on Ocean, polar and earth science missions
India's deep sea mining programme explores the seabed for minerals under three International Seabed Authority contracts.