CMFRI to host int’l symposium

KOCHI: The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) will host the second international symposium of SAFARI (Societal Applications in Fisheries and Aquaculture using Remote Sensing Imagery) from January 15 to 17 in Kochi.

The three-day event will come up with a road map for using satellite data for scores of objectives in the marine sector, which include identifying areas of fish abundance in the sea, providing real-time advisories on nature of the ocean, forecasting various ocean phenomena such as mud bank and changes in sea-surface temperature (SST) and predicting the changes occurring in the ocean ecosystem owing to climate change.
Eminent scientists working on global ocean satellite data, technocrats, oceanographers, marine experts and policy makers from across the globe will converge at the symposium to find ways and means to finalise the road map.

“The symposium titled ‘Remote Sensing for Ecosystem Analysis and Fisheries’ will explore ways to apply the remote sensing techniques, a highly prospective facility, in the areas such as aquaculture; harvest fisheries; fisheries management; fishery environment and ecology; fresh water, estuarine and marine fisheries; and socio-economics and ICT,” said A Gopalakrishnan, CMFRI director.

The road map finalised by the meet will help refine the existing technologies in the country’s marine fisheries sector and introduce newer methods to accelerate the growth rate of the sector, he said.  Trilochan Mohapatra, secretary of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education and director general of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), will inaugurate the symposium on Monday. J K Jena, deputy director general (Fisheries) of the ICAR will preside over the function.

B Meenakumari, chairperson of the National Biodiversity Authority; Lasse H Pettersson from the Nansen Environmental Remote Sensing Centre, Norway; Rodney M Forster from the University of Hull, the United Kingdom; and N R Menon, chairman of the Nansen Environmental Research Centre-India, will speak on the inaugural session of the meet.A special stakeholder meeting on disaster management will be held on January 17.