Indian seaweed resources and sustainable utilization: Scenario at the dawn of a new century

The history of Indian seaweed research is not more than seventy-five years. The state of the Indian seaweed resources was last reviewed in 1998 and subsequently lot of new information relating to resources, utilization and commercial cultivation has been added. The main objective of the present review is to gather and analyse all such additional information made available by recent workers in the last eight years. The most recent quantitative estimates for seaweed biomass recorded in the literature for different coastal areas of India are given. An attempt has also been made to provide information on commercial utilization of natural resources, import-export trend for seaweeds and seaweed phycocolloids. Industrial utilization of seaweeds and cultivation of economically important seaweeds in India, socio-economic profile of seaweed collectors, future possible utilization strategies to be adopted for conservation of germplasm and introduction of legislation policies for their controlled harvesting and sustainable utilization are elucidated in detail. When compared with the world scenario, estimates for India do not suggest the existence of rich seaweed resources. Though data on different coastal states are abundant qualitatively as well as quantitatively, they are inconsistent and incomplete and methods adopted for estimation varied considerably. The quantitative data are generally confined to estimates of corresponding harvest or of standing stalk; however, there is little direct evidence of how these estimates are related to sustainable annual harvest.

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