MARINE PROTECTED AREAS

India has a coastline of 8,118 km, with an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 2.02 million sq km and a continental shelf area of 372,424 km², spread across 9 maritime States and seven Union Territories, including the islands of Andaman and Nicobar, and Lakshadweep. India represents 2.5 percent of the world’s landmass and supports a population of over one billion people. India is also one of 17 mega-biodiverse countries in the world, with 7.8% of the recorded species of the world, including 45,500 recorded species of plants and 91,000 recorded species of animals. The marine ecosystem is extremely diverse, attributed to the geomorphologic and climatic variations along the coast. The coastal and marine habitat includes near shore, gulf waters, creeks, tidal flats, mud flats, coastal dunes, mangroves, marshes, wetlands, seaweed and sea grass beds, deltaic plains, estuaries, lagoons and coral reefs.