Coastal Aquaculture and Mariculture

Unit 1 - Fishery Zones and Fishery resources

1.4. Exclusive Economic Zone
This concept of allotting nations EEZs to give better control of maritime affairs outside territorial limits gained acceptance in the late 20th century and was given binding international recognition by the Third United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. Under the law of the sea, an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) is a seazone over which a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources. EEZ is the area adjacent to a coastal state which encompasses all waters between:

• The seaward boundary of that state
• A line on which each point is 200 nautical miles (370.40 km) from the baseline from which the territorial sea of the coastal state is measured (except. when other international boundaries need to be accommodated) and
• The maritime boundaries agreed between that state and the neighboring states. Thus, the EEZ overlaps both the contiguous zone and territorial waters. States also have rights to the seabed of the continental shelf up to 350 nautical miles from the coast, where this extends beyond the EEZ, and does not form part of their EEZ. The total area of Indian EEZ is estimated to be 2,305,143 km2 that include the mainland area of 1,641,514 km2 and Andaman Islands, 663,629 km2. Fish stock that migrates between EEZ of two different countries (neighboring countries) or between an EEZ and High Sea, is called Straddling stock. Eg.Tuna. It is also referred to as shared stock. Shared stock is one which is available for capture in EEZ of two or more nations during its life history.
  

Map showing Indian EEZ