While the changes in temperature do have a bearing on food availability in marine waters, there is no denying that fishing pressures (over exploitation) have also contributed to the reduction in catch. The report, ‘Relative vulnerability assessment of Indian marine fishes to climate change’ showed that fishing pressure and climate change are bound to interact and create multiple, simultaneous alterations within the marine ecosystem, particularly coastal waters. Exploitation rates for different, commercially-important species are a major indicator about the future vulnerability of species amid climate change impacts. Almost all fish species – except tunas, seer fish and barracudas – are exploited by using trawl nets. But, even these fishes are susceptible to capture by trawl nets during their juvenile phase. “Fisheries management is going to play a very important role in catch sustainability. Most of our policies are activated or get impetus only when we are undergoing a crisis, like now when there’s a steady fall in the catch. For example, there was a huge dip in catch of oil sardines in 1994. But there was no discussion or uproar,” said Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute’s principal scientist Sunil Mohamed who is leading a study on productivity susceptibility assessment (PSA). “But, over the last couple of years, look at the level of discussions and awareness. The state could implement minimum legal size for catch, bring in mesh size regulation etc, only because stakeholders realized the need. The country should try to develop strict regulations and proper management of our resources. We took up this work to check the state of tropical fisheries,” he said. The report is expected in the middle of this year. The major issues shadowing Indian marine fish production include overfishing pressure and reducing yields, poor implementation of regulations, increasing pollution of coastal waters, marine debris/litter accumulation in coastal waters, ghost fishing, inland water bodies being severely affected by effluent discharge and eutrophication.