Swim to safety: On the dugong and conservation

Once widespread across the Gulf of Mannar, Palk Bay, the Gulf of Kutch and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India’s dugongs dwindled to a few hundred individuals as poaching, by-catch, habitat loss and pollution compounded the animals’ slow rate of reproduction. But, in the last decade, a series of initiatives have signalled a serious, if still inchoate, effort to reverse this decline. The most visible step was the notification of the Dugong Conservation Reserve in Palk Bay in 2022 under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. Protecting over 12,000 hectares of seagrass meadows, it has become a model of integrated marine conservation. Tamil Nadu’s stewardship, bolstered by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and local community participation, has mitigated poaching and encouraged fishers to release dugongs caught as by-catch. Now, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has recognised the reserve as an exemplar, lauding its ecological significance and innovative restoration techniques. WII surveys suggest that the population here numbers over 200, fragile but encouraging progress from the fear of extinction voiced two decades ago. India has also experimented with technologies that widen conservation options, which include drone platforms and acoustic and satellite-based mapping of seagrass beds.

Yet, much remains to be done. Even in the reserve, mechanised fishing, port construction, dredging and pollution from agriculture and industry threaten seagrass meadows. Dugongs continue to die in fishing nets. Rising sea temperatures, acidification and storms threaten restoration gains. Populations in Gujarat and the Andamans are also smaller and less protected than in Tamil Nadu. Experts have stressed the importance of cross-border collaboration, particularly with Sri Lanka, since dugongs traverse the narrow Palk Strait. Without shared protection, the recovery will remain local. Funding, too, has been inconsistent: while allocations from the compensatory afforestation fund have helped, the long gestation of dugong populations requires decades of steady investment. These efforts and shortcomings hold broader lessons for the conservation of other marine species that demand intact ecosystems while being directly threatened by human activity. The Palk Bay reserve demonstrates that community engagement with fishers as partners can mitigate by-catch and create local constituencies for conservation. The IUCN recognition underscores how international endorsement can amplify domestic efforts, offering legitimacy and opportunities for knowledge exchange. Likewise, blending traditional ecological knowledge with technologies such as drones and echosounders shows how conservation can bridge tradition with modernity.