NEW DELHI: India, in partnership with Australia and Singapore, is working towards research interventions for monitoring and assessing marine litter and possible sustainable solutions in order to address the global marine pollution due to plastic.
Dr M Ravichandran, Secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences, Government of India, in his keynote address at the workshop on February 14 and 15, mentioned the application of technological tools such as remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to track the pollution caused due to marine plastics hence developing models to understand the dynamics of plastics found in the Indian ocean. This virtual event paved a platform and an impetus to East Asia Summit (EAS) countries for diving deep into exploration and gathering solutions to marine litter- specifically in plastic use, design, disposal, and recycling so that sustainable development can be devised for eradicating marine litter.
EAS has been a premier forum for discussions on significant strategic issues in the Indo-Pacific region, and confidence-building mechanisms. Ever since its establishment in 2005, it has always talked about regional peace, security, closer regional cooperation of Asia-pacific and the Indian Ocean region. This virtual medium brought together the world’s leading experts and industry innovators rendering their expertise via discussions thus providing important key points.