The National Institute for Coastal & Marine Biodiversity (NICMB) was set up at Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu in October, 2003 by the Wildlife Institute of India on the directives of the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India. While the NICMB is proposed to be a full fledged autonomous institute, at present it is operational as under a special scheme. The mandate of the NICMB is to collate information on activities by various agencies on the coastal and marine environment in India and co-ordinate the Ministry’s funded activities of conservation agencies along the coast and marine habitats. In addition NICMB activities will include capacity building, management oriented research, awareness education, development of alternative livelihood options for marine resource dependent agencies and transfer of state of art management methods to marine conservation practitioners.

The WII faculty members involved in the NICMB activities have proposed to take up the following interim research and development activities from the initial grant given by the MoEF, GOI. The projects are under.

I. Assessing and improving the marine Protected Area Network.
II. Assessment of marine fauna in trade and their conservation need.
III. Assessing capacity building need in marine conservation.
IV. Assessing the research and development need.
V. Preparing a state of our coastal and marine environment report.
VI. Production of a directory of organization involved in marine biodiversity research and management.
VII. Assessing the impact of developmental activities on coastal and marine biodiversity.

The presentation in the ARS covers the work and methodological effort taken up on the projects i) Assessment of marine fauna in trade and their conservation need, ii) Preparing a state of our coastal and marine environment report and iii) Production of a directory of organization involved in marine biodiversity research and management.