India’s plan to begin natural-capital and climate-risk accounting of its blue economy | Explained
India's national statistical machinery released a concept paper proposing an experimental methodology to compile monetary asset accounts for the country's marine fish resources.
The exercise treats fish stocks — found both in coastal waters and across the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) — as natural capital assets to be valued in monetary terms, not just counted in physical (tonnage) terms.
The move is a step toward natural-capital and climate-risk accounting of India's blue economy, aligning national accounts with international environmental-economic accounting standards.
Public and expert feedback on the concept paper will feed into finalizing a standardized valuation methodology for India's official statistics.
System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA)
The SEEA is a statistical framework endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission that integrates environmental data (natural resource stocks, ecosystem services, pollution) with conventional economic accounts (like GDP), allowing "natural capital" — forests, water, minerals, fish stocks — to be tracked alongside produced capital. It has a Central Framework (physical and monetary asset accounts for individual resources) and an Ecosystem Accounting component.
Key Details
- SEEA was adopted as an international statistical standard by the UN Statistical Commission.
- India's exercise on marine fish resources — released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) as a concept paper titled on the "Methodological Approach for Compilation of Experimental Monetary Asset Accounts of Marine Fish Resources" — is explicitly framed as aligned with the SEEA Central Framework.
- India has separately been developing natural capital/ecosystem accounts for other resources (e.g., forests, wetlands, mangroves/blue carbon) under related SEEA-aligned pilot exercises.
The marine fish valuation exercise is India's latest concrete step in institutionalizing SEEA-based natural capital accounting, moving fish stocks from a purely production-tonnage metric (as in fisheries statistics) to a monetary asset on the national balance sheet.
Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and India's Blue Economy
Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), 1982, a coastal state's EEZ extends up to 200 nautical miles from its baseline, within which it has sovereign rights over exploration and exploitation of natural resources (living and non-living). India's EEZ spans roughly 2.4 million sq. km, one of the larger ocean spaces among coastal nations, and is central to the country's "blue economy" — the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth.
Key Details
- Most of India's marine fish catch actually comes from nearshore/territorial waters, with the EEZ and high seas contributing a much smaller share of current landings, underlining the case for exploring deep-sea/offshore fishery potential.
- India is the second-largest fish producing country globally, contributing a significant share of world fisheries output, with marine fisheries forming a substantial part of total fish production.
- The Blue Economy Policy framework (NITI Aayog) identifies fisheries, aquaculture, ocean renewable energy, and deep-sea mining as priority growth areas.
Because EEZ fish stocks are a shared, common-pool natural resource without a central real-time database of stock levels, monetary valuation is seen as a tool to price the resource properly, guide sustainable harvest limits, and prevent overfishing.
Climate-Risk Accounting and Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY)
Climate-risk accounting extends natural capital accounts by factoring in how climate change (warming seas, ocean acidification, shifting fish migration patterns) alters the future value and availability of a resource, rather than treating it as a fixed stock. This connects to fisheries management concepts like Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) — the largest catch that can be sustainably taken from a fish stock indefinitely without depleting it.
Key Details
- India's EEZ (Management of Fishing) Rules aim to keep harvesting levels consistent with MSY-based sustainable limits.
- Rising sea-surface temperatures and ocean acidification are recognized threats to fish stock productivity and coral-reef-linked fisheries.
- Natural capital accounts that incorporate climate risk allow policymakers to see depreciation of a "natural asset" the same way accountants track depreciation of physical infrastructure.
By pursuing natural-capital and climate-risk accounting together, the exercise seeks not just a snapshot valuation of fish stocks but a dynamic one that reflects climate-driven risk to future fisheries wealth.
- India's EEZ covers approximately 2.4 million sq. km.
- Total fish production (all sources) was estimated at around 19.77 million metric tonnes in FY25, of which marine fisheries contributed roughly 4.6 million metric tonnes (about 23% of the total).
- Marine product exports were valued at approximately ₹62,400 crore (about $7.45 billion) in the same period.
- India's fisheries sector supports the livelihoods of an estimated 28 million fishers and fish farmers.
- The SEEA framework, under which this exercise is aligned, is endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission as the international standard for environmental-economic accounting.