CMLRE, Cochin under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, Govt. of India is the National facility responsible for undertaking R & D activities in the country which inter-alia include mapping of the marine living resources, to strengthen the knowledge base on the complex interactions in the marine ecosystems of the seas around India and vulnerable ecosystems in the Indian jurisdiction, to enable the policy makers and managers to derive strategies for the optimum and effective utilization through ecosystem management on Marine Living Resources and Ecology.

The Marine Living Resources Programme envisages survey, assessment and exploitation of the MLR and studies on the response of MLR to changes in the physical environment with the objective of developing an ecosystem model for the management of the living resources in the Indian EEZ.

The Fishery Oceanographic Vessel (FORV) Sagar Sampada is fully utilized for these studies in addition to the information from other sources viz; satellite remote sensing, Modelling outputs, Argo profiles and Buoy data. On-going MLR activities focus on Inventorying the Marine Biodiversity with ancillary environmental parameters, understanding the ecosystem process that governs the biology and biogeochemistry of the ecosystems of the eastern Arabian Sea. Modeling efforts and maintenance of Data & Referral Centre on FORV collections are the long-term activities associated with the major programs.