Seaweed potential and its exploitation in India

The potential areas in India for luxuriant growth of seaweeds are south Tamil Nadu coast, Gujarat coast, Lakshadweep and Andaman Nicobar Islands. The total standing crop of seaweeds from Intertidal and shallow waters of all maritime states and Lakshadweep Islands was estimated as 91339 tons (wet WI.) The quantity of seaweeds growing in deep waters ofTamiJ Nadu was estimated as 75372 tons (wet wt) in an area of 1863 sq km from Dhanushkodi to Kanyakumari. Data were collected every month from 1978 to 1995 from the seaweed landing centres in Tamil Nadu on the quantity of seaweeds exploited from the natural seaweed beds. During this period the quantity of agar yielding seaweeds Gelidiella acerosa, Graci/aria edulis, G. crassa and G. foliifera exploited in a year varied from 248 to 1289 tons (dry wt).; algin yielding seaweeds Sargassum spp and Turbinaria spp from 651 5537 tons (dry wt) and all the above seaweeds from 1177 to 6420 tons (dry wt). Since several years, agar yielding red algae are over exploited in Tamil Nadu. The need for conservat ion of commercially important seaweeds of Tamil Nadu and time - table for their commercial exploitation are given. The harvesting of under exploited and unexploited seaweeds from Tamil Nadu and unexploited seaweeds from other parts of Indian coast are suggested.