Socio-economics of elasmobranch fisheries in India: ecological, livelihood and governance dimensions

Sharks and rays are an important yet heterogeneous component of India’s marine fisheries, contributing to food supply, household income, processing, trade and associated services, while many species have life-history characteristics that make them sensitive to sustained fishing mortality. This review synthesizes ecological, fisheries, livelihood, market and governance evidence on Indian shark and ray fisheries using a structured narrative evidence-synthesis approach with documented information sources, search strings, eligibility criteria, a source hierarchy and fixed extraction fields. Quantitative evidence is reported with geographic unit, reference period, metric, source and comparability limitations. National ICAR–CMFRI landing estimates are used as the principal quantitative baseline; they are treated as monitoring indicators and not as direct measures of total catch, abundance or fishing mortality. Indian elasmobranch fisheries include directed capture, incidental capture, retained bycatch and discarding, often within the same multispecies fishing system, and the value chain extends beyond fins to meat, skin, liver oil and other commodities. Quantitative India-specific evidence on employment, income and gender remains limited, and global statistics are used only as context. Policy evidence is drawn from primary government and intergovernmental sources, with a distinction between policy publication, notification, implementation and evaluation. Species- and gear-specific monitoring, improved taxonomic resolution, bycatch mitigation, transparent value-chain information, gender-disaggregated socio-economic data and participatory governance are identified as more defensible immediate priorities than broad technology-led interventions.