Blue Green Lovers

Aruna S. Maheepala INTRODUCTION. Coastal countries depend on healthy oceans for food, jobs, and climate control, but these resources are often not well managed and mapped. Sri Lanka's fishing industry provides about half of the country's animal protein (World  Bank, 2022 ; Rathnachandra and Malkanthi, 2024) . The  country has a coastline of 1,340 km and an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) of about 517,000 km², which is about eight times the size of its land area. To protect fisheries, tourism, and coastal ecosystems, it is required to manage them based on science (US Department of Commerce n.d.) (Parsons et al., 1998) . To do that, it is important to have the most recent marine data (Kemp  et al. 2023) . Therefore, this article explains why coastal countries need fishery surveys for science-based management, and it also looks at Sri Lanka's Nansen survey history from the 1970s to 2018 and talks about the laws, national policies, and political problems that are relevant. ...

    Mankeni,    Batticaloa District, Sri  Lanka Aruna Sampath The ocean, which makes up more than 70% of the planet's surface, is the source of life on Earth. It provides more than 50% of the oxygen on Earth, sustains a vast amount of biodiversity, feeds billions of people, and controls the climate. It serves as a vital basis for human survival, livelihoods, and food security. However, a number of human caused factors, such as overfishing, which has reduced 90% of large fish populations, widespread pollution from chemicals, plastics, and industrial waste, as well as the serious consequences of climate change, such as coral bleaching and rising sea levels, pose a serious threat to this vital resource. (United Nations 2025) Furthermore, about half of coral reef ecosystems have already been destroyed, endangering marine biodiversity. In light of this, the theme for 2025 World Oceans Day, "Wonder: Sustaining What Sustains Us," calls on everyone to rediscover the o...