KOCHI: The work of a Kerala doctoral student -- Saranya A Sankar -- is among 22 projects and fisheries initiatives from 12 countries granted funds by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), an internationally recognised sustainable seafood certification and ecolabelling programme.
Saranya, a research scholar with Cusat and the Sustainable Seafood Network of India (SSNI), was awarded MSC’s OSF Student Research Grant of $6,500 to help the Kerala shrimp and cephalopod trawl fishery improvement project (FIP) progress towards achieving MSC certification by 2024.
The MSC awards a total of $9,36,000 in the form of grants ranging from $6,500 to $68,000 each to fisheries, scientists, NGOs and students from different countries to aid international efforts in marine conservation and sustainable fishing.
According to Saranya, MSC stands for protecting the future of oceanic resources. “It encourages everyone to move towards a sustainable use of fish stocks without exploiting these. The organisation brings people, technology, science and policy together for the conservation of oceans. I believe MSC’s work in India will help achieve fisheries sustainability soon. I am very excited to be a part of this journey,” she said.
Saranya will be developing a framework that uses management strategy evaluation (MSE) tools. The study will collect information through a survey with fishery managers, fishers and researchers, which will be used to develop an MSE framework.