This document is part of the reference guide to laws, created and published to help unpack the vast and complicated landscape of laws useful for the protection of India’s coasts. Information contained in this document is collated from various sources.  Treat this as a beginner’s reference guide, useful for people on the ground, who are committed to protecting India’s coastal commons. Visit …. to take a look at the other sections of the reference guide. 

This document simplifies and unpacks the Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act, 2005 and the guidelines issued under it. 

Coastal aquaculture refers to the culture of saltwater and brackish fish (including shellfish) on or near coastal areas. Presently, it is considered one of the fastest growing food producing sectors globally (Ahmed and Glaser 2016). Coastal aquaculture is said to contribute to 50% of the fish production and employs 18 million people of which 94% are from Asia (Islam et al., 2019). 

India identified coastal aquaculture as an emerging sector to expand exports and add to the foreign exchange of the country in the 1990s. Traditional methods of aquaculture – from the bheris in West Bengal to the Pokkallis in Kerala – have been practised for many centuries by small farmers and fisher folk (FAO, n.d). However, traditional methods of fish cultivation are vastly different from the more commercial kinds of coastal aquaculture that is practised in coastal India today. The shift from traditional methods which relied on natural tidal water exchange and made use of very little inputs to more intensive, chemical and antibiotic dependant that requires processed feeds has come at the cost of exploitation of natural resources and has severely impacted sensitive marine ecosystems (S.Jagannathan vs. UoI, 1996).  

The severe ecological impacts of coastal aquaculture was first highlighted in the landmark case of S. Jagannath vs. Union of India ((1997) 2 SCC 87). This public interest litigation was filed for the stoppage of intensive and semi-intensive type of prawn farming in ecologically fragile coastal areas and asked for the enforcement of the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification, 1991. It also asked for the  constitution of a National Coastal Management Authority to safeguard marine life and coastal areas.

The Supreme Court took note of the ecologically destructive practices employed in the coastal aquaculture industry and the blind eye that had been turned towards enforcement of regulations such as the CRZ, 1991. In its judgement, the Court prohibited the construction of shrimp culture ponds within a distance of 1000m of the Pulicat and Chilika lakes as well as within the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ). An exception was made for traditional and improved traditional ponds, which were recognised as ecologically sound practices and these were barred from this prohibition. The Court also directed the setting up of an authority to specifically deal with the developments of the shrimp culture industry with the objective of protecting the ecologically fragile environments of coastal areas, sea shores and water fronts. 

In Spite of this watershed judgement in 1996, precious little was done to regulate the coastal aquaculture industry. It was only in 2005 that the Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act, 2005 was enacted, which established a Coastal Aquaculture Authority (CAA) to regulate the activities and matters connected with coastal aquaculture. 

Role and functions of the CAA: 

The Authority is mandated to perform the following key functions, which are described in the Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Rules), 2005 as: 

Monitoring:

1. Make regulations for construction and maintenance of coastal aquaculture farms. 
2. Ascertain the environmental impact of coastal aquaculture farms. 
3. Check land being converted for aquaculture purposes and ensure that it is not in violation of rules for coastal regulation, wildlife protection or any other laws. 
4. Deal with any issues with respect to coastal aquaculture, including those being referred by the Centre.
5. Direct farm owners to modify operations to minimise impact on the coastal environment.
6. Order seasonal or complete closure of coastal aquaculture farms, if they are found to be polluting.
7. Registration, renewal and cancellation of coastal aquaculture farms.
8. Standardise coastal aquaculture inputs (seed, growth supplements etc.).

Consultation and Training:

1. Strategise activities for eco-friendly coastal aquaculture development. 
2. Advise and support common infrastructure development between States and UTs.
3. Recommend to the Central Government modifications in guidelines as and when needed.
4. Constitute technical committees/subcommittees, groups/sub-groups and working groups involved with all stakeholders at all levels of the government.
5. Organise training of personnel engaging in sustainable utilisation of coastal resources for aquaculture purposes.

Outreach:

1. Sponsor environmental protection investigations/studies and demonstrate eco-friendly coastal aquaculture practices.
2. Collect and share socio-economic and scientific coastal aquaculture data. 
3. Code and prepare audio visual material on sustainable development of coastal aquaculture.
4. Organise comprehensive programmes regarding sustainable use and equitable sharing of coastal resources.

Guidelines for Regulating Coastal Aquaculture

The Ministry of Agriculture through the powers granted by Sec 3 of the CAA Act issues sustainable development guidelines for all stakeholders involved in coastal aquaculture from the coastal community, shrimp farmers, State Fisheries Departments, Pollution Control Boards to the Ministries and Departments of the Central Government. The aim is to enhance the positive contributions of aquaculture such as socio-economic benefits, poverty alleviation and livelihood security in coastal areas. Broadly, the Guidelines for Regulating Coastal Aquaculture, 2005 are as follows: 

• Permit only traditional, improved traditional and scientific shrimp farming practices. (Guideline 3)
• Lay down conditions for siting shrimp ponds for e.g. example finding areas with minimal social, economic and legal issues, taking up remedial measures for negative impacts, avoiding mangrove areas and ecologically sensitive wetlands etc. (Guideline 4)
• List down a checklist for farm design and construction (Guideline 5) and waste water management and standardise the treatment of water discharged from the aquaculture farms, feed mills, hatcheries and processing units (Guideline 13)
• Recommend dosages of organic and inorganic fertilisers to increase production (Guideline 5)
• Elaborate on water quality parameters and their optimal levels (Guideline 6)
• Enumerate the banned antibiotics and other pharmacologically active substances (Guideline 11) 
•  Map the environmental impact of farms and prepare management plans to mitigate environmental impacts (Guidelines 15 and 16)
• Integrate the master plans for development of aquaculture with Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plans (ICZMP) using technology such as GIS mapping and assessing socio-environmental impacts (Guideline 18)
• Issue guidelines regarding seed production (Guideline 7), seed selection and stocking (Guideline 8), feed and feed management (Guideline 9), health management of shrimps (Guideline 10), harvest and post-harvest (Guideline 12), farm hygiene and management (Guideline 14), Cluster management, record maintenance and networking (Guideline 17)
• Address inter-sectoral concerns to protect the livelihood of various coastal communities (Guideline 19)
• List down the maximum permissible residual levels for fishery products (appendix)

Amendments

The first amendment to the law came in 2009 for regulating hatcheries and farms to facilitate the introduction of Litopenaeus vannamei. Some key points are summarised below (Ministry of Agriculture 2009):

• It introduced the definition of farm to mean “coastal aquaculture farm intended for culturing endemic and exotic shrimp species, fish or any other aquatic animals in saline or brackish water.” 
• It defined hatchery as a “shrimp hatchery intended to rear broodstock of endemic and exotic shrimp species, fish or any other aquatic animals in saline or brackish water for breeding to produce its seed for supply to farms.” 
• This amendment also introduced the ‘Guidelines for Regulating Hatcheries and Farms for the Introduction of L vannamei’ as an annexure to the Act. The guidelines elaborated on the safeguards to be observed by hatcheries, including setting the criteria for breeding L. vannamei; sanitary requirements, water intake, treatment and discharge, seed production and sale, broodstock in hatchery, disease reporting and inspection. It required aquaculture farms to apply for a permit to breed L. vannamei, establish norms for culturing it, setup Effluent Treatment System (ETS) irrespective of the farm size, lay down water discharge protocols and set bio-security considerations. 

The second amendment came in 2012 aimed at seed production and the culture of specific pathogen free (SPF) Penaeus Monodon. Similar to the 2009 amendment, this one laid out safeguards and regulations for the operation of SPF Penaeus Monodon hatcheries. Already registered aquaculture farms also required a permit to farm SPF Penaeus Monodon. Moreover, it established standards for the species quarantine, import amount and suppliers (Ministry of Agriculture 2012).

An amendment to the rules was issued in 2015. These rules introduced Guidelines for farms which are registered for Penaeus monodon to take up cultivation of  L. vannamei. 

Concerns Regarding CAA Act 

• Several small farms are not monitored for environmental impacts: 

The Act requires an aquaculture unit to be over 40 ha in size for an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) (Guideline 15, Annexure I). Additionally, all units smaller than 40 ha are excused from incorporating an Environment Monitoring Plan and Environment Management Plan (EMMP)). Though farms between 10-40 ha are directed to furnish details that are included in the EMMP, no prescribed format or guidelines are charted for this purpose (Guideline 16, Annexure I). Considering that 90% of the Indian shrimp farms are less than 2.5 ha in size, the regulations of CAA filters out most of the production sites from provisions meant to safeguard the very environment they operate in (M, 2011). 

• Several farms are operating without due licences and registrations:

In order to operate within the CRZ, farms must be registered with the Coastal Aquaculture Authority since the implementation of the law in 2009. However, an article in Undercurrent News from 2018 suggested that only 1,684 L. vannamei shrimp farms are registered under the Act (Harkell 2018). Another news article published in 2014 in New Indian Express states  that despite the risk of shrimp farms attracting fines when operating without licence, about 60% of them in Tamil Nadu still function illegally. A  news article reveals that one of the leading states in shrimp culturing i.e. Andhra Pradesh – which supplied over 400,000 metric tons of L. vannamei shrimp in 2015-16 – had a mere 699 registered shrimp farms as of March, 2016 (Harkell 2018). In Tamil Nadu, the reason for the number of unregistered farms was seen to be the shortage of human resources at Coastal Aquaculture Authority (R. 2014). Farmers have reportedly been waiting for their licences for 2 years (R. 2014). However, these claims have been refuted by CAA which holds that no proposals remain pending with it for the registration process (Shrimpnews 2014). 

In the absence of registrations and licences, there is little scope for the CAA to monitor the environmental and social impacts of aquaculture farms operating illegally. However, apart from specific concerns regarding the CAA, the coastal aquaculture sector continues to have severe socio-ecological impacts that need to be addressed on priority. 

Impact of the Coastal Aquaculture Sector

Both conversion and abandonment have been causes of concern for farmers practising sustainable management of resources as well as coastal resource managers. Other than agriculture land and mangroves, it is also mudflats and scrublands that are being converted for aquaculture activities (Jayanthi et al. 2019). This, coupled with abandonment of shrimp ponds after short-term use leads to massive land-use effects of the shrimp farming industry.

• Between 1980-2005, over 3.6 million ha of mangroves have been lost to overexploitation, aquaculture, agriculture, urbanisation, tourism and pollution.  The carbon emissions from them are of great concern because they store 3-4 times more carbon than tropical forests but face deforestation rates higher than the average rates of global deforestation (Ahmed and Glaser 2016).
• The shrimp farming industry is increasingly becoming unsustainable as it leads to conversion of agricultural land into shrimp ponds causing biodiversity concerns, salinization of both ground water and agricultural land as well as social conflicts (Jayanthi 2011). Since most Indian shrimp farmers are small land holders (less than 2 ha) with limited incomes, once shrimp farming becomes unproductive and farms are abandoned, there is little knowledge on how to re-convert abandoned farms to agricultural farms, adversely impacting their incomes (Jayanthi et al. 2019). 
• Shrimp farming is related to ecological and economic deterioration also due to its association with land abandonment issues⁽¹⁾ causing poverty, unsustainability and decline in farmland biodiversity. This is of great concern to India which contributes 5.2% of the global aquaculture production i.e. 110.2 million tonnes (Jayanthi et al. 2019).
• The aquaculture area in one of the major shrimp-producing states of Andhra Pradesh which used to occupy 79,600 ha in 2000 has dropped to 40,445 ha in 2015. Abandoned shrimp sites are likely to deteriorate since they are unstable, this puts the neighbouring sites at risk ⁽²⁾ and unless handled, their restoration becomes even more difficult (Jayanthi et al. 2019).
• Incidence of disease outbreaks causes large farm areas to be left unused in numerous shrimp farming countries ⁽³⁾ (Jayanthi et al. 2019).

Going Forward

Sustainable solutions are based on the interconnectedness of elements within a system. To make a sector sustainable, its various components and their relationships with each other need to be traced and understood. Aquaculture deals with natural resources like land, water, fauna species etc. which transcend geographical and sectoral boundaries. The rules and guidelines laid down by CAA should thus be studied in conjunction with several other key legislations relevant to aquaculture. These include Indian Fisheries Act (1897), Environment (Protection) Act (1986), Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act (1974) and Wild Life Protection Act (1972). India is also a member of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) as well as Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia and the Pacific (NACA) and is a party to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and Biosafety Protocol which further come to affect the sector of aquaculture. Learnings and developments arising from these international bodies and platforms should be routinely incorporated within our national law to adjust them to recent findings and global implications.    

Conclusion

As seen through case studies in earlier sections and approaches in policy documents, one can see that aquaculture growth has affected different parts of the coasts differently and they face different vulnerabilities. This change varies from region to region, one climate zone to another, covering geographical areas on the coast to areas inland as well as the species being farmed. Legislation thus needs to be sensitive to geographies and ongoing climate change related impacts. 

In an aim to expand the sector, the amendments to the CAA Rules brought more aquatic species into the ambit of the law and expanded the scientific practices of aquaculture. While this might be important from a production point of view, it is necessary to regulate the small shrimp farms by bringing them also under the purview of the law. Special attention also needs to be paid to issues of non-compliance with standards and protocols laid down in the law. The push to develop mariculture as seen in the National Marine Fishing Policy 2017, as well as the expansion of aquaculture seen in the Blue Economy plans of the Central Government, presents a regulatory and monitoring challenge given the issues with non-compliance currently seen with registration of aquaculture farms as well as the number of farms left out of the purview of the CAA Act 2005. The connectedness of marine ecosystems, already bearing the weight of temperature rise, bleaching events, pollution from coastal towns and industry and overfishing, mean that any impacts due to absence or non-compliance with safety standards, monitoring protocols etc. by mariculture farms will have far-reaching consequences.  

Endnotes:

1. Land abandonment – observed in tropical and subtropical areas of America and Asia – is usually a result of disease outbreaks, decreased environmental suitability of sites for shrimp farming over a period of time and inadvertent expansion close to ecologically important areas for eg. mangroves, agriculture fields (Jayanthi et al. 2019).
2. Coastal areas prone to diseases due to shrimp farms also put the crops in the vicinity at risk. Such crop failures often lead to low-salinity culture practices, conversion of agriculture fields and expansion of shrimp farming in inland areas. Farms also affect the composition of the soil in terms of dissolved oxygen, pH, phosphate, salinity, nitrate and total alkalinity (Jayanthi et al. 2019).
3. Due to the outbreak of White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV) disease, while the area under shrimp culture in India increased by 40,137 ha between 1994-1998, the corresponding change in shrimp production was not observed (Jayanthi 2011). 

References

Aditi R. (2014, August 4). With No one to Grant Licences, Shrimp Farmers in Legal Limbo. The New Indian Express. https://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/chennai/2014/aug/04/With-No-one-to-Grant-Licences-Shrimp-Farmers-in-Legal-Limbo-643561.html

Ahmed, Nesar and Marion Glaser (2016). Coastal aquaculture, mangrove deforestation and blue carbon emissions: Is REDD+ a solution?. Marine Policy, 66, pp.58–66.

Food and Agriculture Organization. Fisheries & Aquaculture: National Aquaculture Sector Overview (NASO). https://www.fao.org/fishery/en/countrysector/in/en

Harkell, L (2018, January 27). India show: BAP status for shrimp highest in India; Tiny number of vannamei farms registered with ruling authority. Undercurrent News. https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2018/01/27/india-show/

 India Correction CAA Licences (2014, August 8). Shrimp News International. http://shrimpnews.com/FreeReportsFolder/NewsReportsFolder/IndiaCorrectionOnCAALicenses.html

Islam, M. M., Barman, A., Kundu, G. K., Kabir, M. A., & Paul, B. (2019). Vulnerability of inland and coastal aquaculture to climate change: Evidence from a developing country. Aquaculture and Fisheries, 4(5), 183-189.

Jayanthi, M. (2011). Monitoring brackishwater aquaculture development using multi-spectral satellite data and GIS- a case study near Pichavaram mangroves south-east coast of India. Indian Journal of Fisheries, 58(1), 85-90.

Jayanthi, M., Ravisankar, T., Nagaraj, G., Thirumurthy, S., Muralidhar, M., & Saraswathy, R. (2019). Is aquaculture abandonment a threat to sustainable coastal resource use?–a case study of Andhra Pradesh, India, with options for reuse. Land Use Policy, 86, 54-66.

Rangan, A. K., Rachel Pearlin, C. A. G., Jairaj, C. B., Rama Lakshmi Mahadevan, C. A. G., Sridhar, C. A., & ATREE, B. (2007). Assessing and enhancing legislative provisions for natural resource conservation in the Gulf of Mannar. Gulf of Mannar Biosphere Reserve Trust, pp.1–63.

​Venkateswarlu, V., Seshaiah, P. V., Arun, P., & Behra, P. C. (2019). A study on water quality parameters in shrimp L. vannamei semi-intensive grow out culture farms in coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh, India. International Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Studies, 7(4), 394-399.

Acts, Rules and Guidelines referred: 

The Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act, 2005 (India). http://caa.gov.in/uploaded/doc/Act-English.pdf

Coastal Aquaculture Authority Act (Rules) 2005 (India). http://caa.gov.in/uploaded/doc/Rules-English.pdf

Guidelines for Regulating Coastal Aquaculture, 2005 (India). http://caa.gov.in/uploaded/doc/Guidelines-Englishnew.pdf

Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Amendment) Rules, 2009 (India). http://caa.gov.in/uploaded/doc/notification-302(E).pdf

Coastal Aquaculture Authority (Amendment) Rules, 2012 (India). http://caa.gov.in/uploaded/doc/gazette23-03-12.PDF

Cases referred: 

S. Jagannath v Union of India (1997) 2 SCC 87

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