Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute drive against marine pollution

KOCHI: A two-month long awareness campaign against marine pollution got underway in Kochi with a call for strengthening effective waste management strategy to tackle marine pollution. The Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) is conducting the campaign at a time when the excessive accumulation of plastics in the sea is causing danger not only to the marine habitat but to human health too.

As part of the campaign, the CMFRI set up an art installation named ‘Fish Cemetery’ to indicate the danger of dumping plastic wastes into the sea. According to Dr A. Gopalakrishnan, director of CMFRI, dumping of plastic wastes would lead to the degeneration of marine ecosystem resulting in the depletion of commercially valuable fish stocks. “It is alarming to find out the presence of microplastics inside the fish causing danger to the human beings”, he said adding that participatory waste management was the need of the hour to sustain life on earth.

“CMFRI has brought out the artistic concept of ‘Fish Cemetery’, a symbolic expression of dead fishes owing to the consumption of plastic wastes, to create public awareness about the dangers of plastic dumping”, he said.   Dr Sunil Mohammed, the principal scientist, CMFRI, said an average of one kg plastic materials were being deposited in the net even during a one-hour fishing.