In the waters outside the Indian East coast, the invisible line of maritime protection separates from economic problems. Cross this line, even unintentionally, and the fishing family faces legal sanctions or worse, could lose a ship.
This line is now increasingly exceeding, thanks to the mobile phone application designed by MS Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF). Application APP – Fisher Friend Mobile Application – has recently acquired Application Apward Tech4nature Award at the Congress IUCN World Congress in Abu Dhabi for its role in the protection of endangered turtles Olive Ridley, while supporting communities living from the sea.
One of the most influential features is a fishing -free warning system that uses geolocation technology to announce Fishers in real time when they approach the announced nesting sites. These zones are critical to turtles that migrate in millions every year and nest on the Odisha coast. The inclusion of seasonal fishing between November and May is to protect them, but the lack of visible borders led to countless accidental violations.
“Fishers do not see these boundaries with their eyes,” says Velvizhi S., director of the MSSRF program of coastal and naval resources. “Warning from a fishing zone transforms an invisible legal limit to real -time announcements that fishermen can understand and act immediately. This protects turtles and at the same time prevents fishermen from facing fines that could destroy their families,” adds Mrs. Velvizhi.
This function was jointly developed with the Odisha fishing department, included feedback from fishing communities and built specifically to work offline because it is necessary for ships that often work without covering the mobile network. The system uses geo-allocation to indicate four key protection zones, including the Wildlife Sanctuary Gahirmatha Marine and the three mouths of the river. When the ship passes 200 meters from one of these areas, the application sends an automatic warning.
So far, the warning has been launched more than 7,000 times, which probably prevented thousands of invasions to protected habitats.
Post-tsunami intervention
Fisher Friend was first developed after the 2004 Ocean Tsunami with support for Qualcomm and the Indian National Ocean Information Services (Incois). Originally, a tool for sharing weather and ocean information has evolved through 54 iterations shaped by constant feedback from the fishermen themselves.
Today, the application has approximately 1,22,000 registered users across nine coastal states and one trade union and offers services in nine Indian languages. It provides information on weather conditions, fishing zones, warnings of disasters and government systems. It also helps fishermen navigate risks such as rocks, sunken ships and coral reefs.
“Fishermen in Tamil Nadu, Puduchherry and Andhra Pradesh use a mobile application to navigate in danger zones such as rocks, sunken boats and dead coral reefs,” says Paněvizhi. MSSRF now examines Chatbots driven AI in regional languages to further improve availability.
Local knowledge, global impact
Tymya Swaminathan, chairwoman of MSSRF, describes the application as a model of cooperation and participatory development. “It has developed over the past 12-13 years. Many updates are formed directly from Fisherfolk,” he says.
Mrs. Velvizhi notes that although there is a common perception that fishing communities hesitate to adopt technology, they accept it easily when it meets their real needs, especially when local knowledge is respected and integrated into design.
With global recognition, MSSRF now hopes that the application will expand to other coastal regions in cooperation with organizations such as IUCN. The team is also planning to expand their efforts to maintain dugongs, other vulnerable marine species.
“Fishers are now asking for more detailed information about the ocean, such as microclimatic data, which are claimed that they often differ from wider forecasts. We are also exploring ways to expand in other South Asian countries and apply AI for better data analysis,” Tymya Swaminathann.
Published – 13 October 2025 20:12
