How a biodiversity register at CBD COP17 is reclaiming erased Kerala fisher knowledge

Nearly a decade after he helped the Kerala State Biodiversity Board (KSBB) document marine life off the Thiruvananthapuram’s coast, marine researcher Robert Panippilla arrived at the UN biodiversity conference in Yerevan with a digital community biodiversity register that is intended to correct a decade-long injustice.The conference, being held from October 19 to 30, 2026, is the first global review of collective progress in implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.“The digital register is a response to the erasure of community knowledge from the marine biodiversity register published by the KSBB in 2017,” Panipilla said, while speaking to TNM at Yerevan in Armenia.According to him, indigenous knowledge was left out of the state’s documentation because scientific experts had failed to identify marine fauna documented by them.The ICCA Consortium, a global association of Indigenous Peoples, local communities and supporting organisations, provided a platform for Friends of Marine Life (FML) at COP17.Between 2013 and 2015, local fishers led by Robert Panipilla had documented marine biodiversity and the traditional knowledge of local fishing communities in Thiruvananthapuram as part of a KSBB initiative. They documented more than 2,000 species and traditional information provided by 69 knowledge holders.However, when the team submitted its findings, the board appointed five marine scientists to identify and classify the organisms, Panipilla said. He said the scientists could establish the scientific names of only around 500 organisms.“But the KSBB took a highly irresponsible decision. They excluded all organisms the scientists could not identify from the Marine Biodiversity Register,” he alleged.“Normally, all biodiversity-related work should be inclusive. What they did was contrary to that principle.”Developed by Friends of Marine Life (FML), the register was presented by Panipilla at the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17). Professional diver Jestin Jos, who contributed to species identification, also attended the event.The Community Marine Biodiversity Online Register, available at Combor.org, scientifically documents marine species and underwater ecosystems alongside the knowledge of people whose lives and livelihoods are closely tied to the sea.Panippilla alleged that the exclusions in the KSBB register went beyond species without confirmed scientific names. The vernacular names supplied by fisherfolk were also removed, as were the names of the people who had contributed their knowledge, he alleged“They committed two other serious injustices. I am deliberately using the word injustices,” he said.“First, the fisherfolk had provided the vernacular names — the names used in their local language — for all the organisms they had identified. All those names were removed from the register. Likewise, the names of the fisherfolk and the knowledge holders were also removed,” he alleged.The KSBB’s description of its marine biodiversity register says the project documented underwater ecology, demersal species, reefs, rocky areas and traditional fishing knowledge, including navigation and the configuration of the seabed. The board describes the register as an initiative to document traditional knowledge systems among local fishers.‘They did not even give us a copy’Panippilla said the experience prompted FML to prepare a register independently, to make the findings publicly accessible.The team, he said, was not given a copy of the KSBB register after its publication, despite requesting one. He alleged that even an application under the Right to Information Act did not initially yield a copy, and that the team received a photocopy only after filing an appeal.“Based on this experience, we decided that a register prepared by the community should be published online so that it could be made available to the public. There was no reason to keep it hidden.”Former KSBB chairman Oommen V Oommen had stated that exclusions may have resulted from uncertainty over species identification. He had also rejected Panippilla’s criticism in 2024, saying the Marine Biodiversity Register was not intended to be a People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR), which is prepared and published by local self-government institutions. Roshni Kutty, coordinator of the South Asia Marine ICCA Consortium, which works with Indigenous peoples and local communities, said biodiversity documentation should go beyond compiling species lists to involve communities in updating records and shaping conservation priorities. Citing the Goa Biodiversity Board as an example.“In India, I have seen the Goa Biodiversity Board doing a fantastic job of maintaining and updating Biodiversity Registers. It encourages Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs) at the local self-government level to update the registers and urges communities to think beyond documentation and develop a vision for their areas,” she said. It also encourages BMCs to identify sites with the potential to be declared Biodiversity Heritage Sites.“In Kerala, however, the Biodiversity Board did not adequately include local communities’ knowledge. I have been speaking with some district-level biodiversity coordinators about proposing that people like Robert be invited to train local BMCs,” she said. She added, “Biodiversity Registers may need to restrict public access to certain information to protect vulnerable species. But the Indigenous and local communities that contributed their knowledge to these registers must have access to them. That knowledge belongs to them, and their contributions should be recognised.”Robert and Jestin JosBeyond fish: documenting the seabedFor Panippilla, the omissions also point to a deeper problem with how marine biodiversity is understood and documented.He argued that the knowledge of coastal fishing communities extends well beyond identifying fish and other marine organisms. It includes an understanding of the seabed, its contours, underwater habitats and the ecological features that fishers use to locate resources.“One of the most important aspects of the marine biodiversity-related knowledge of our coastal Indigenous communities is their knowledge of the geomorphology of the seabed,” he said.“What do ordinary people think the sea is? They think of it as a blue body of water. And if you ask them what is in it, what would they say? They would say there are fish. That is an absolutely wrong understanding.”Panippilla challenged the common perception that terrestrial ecosystems are visible and stable, while marine ecosystems are invisible and dynamic.“Many members of our fishing communities go underwater every day to collect resources. For example, there are mussel collectors. There are also people who collect lobsters,” he said.“All these people go underwater every day and collect resources directly from these ecosystems. So, these ecosystems are visible to them.”They remain invisible to our scientists because of their  inability to go there and observe them in the same way, he said.“These were the people who had shared their knowledge with us. They were the original holders of that knowledge,” Panipilla said. “Their identities and contributions have been included in the register. That is very important.”Panippilla said stable ecosystems also exist beneath the sea, making the blanket description of marine ecosystems as invisible and dynamic inadequate. A community-led register, he argued, must capture these features instead of restricting itself to species that can be identified through conventional scientific methods.This emphasis on the seabed is consistent with the earlier Kerala marine biodiversity project, which documented underwater habitats and drew on fishers’ knowledge of navigation, reefs and seabed formations.A decade of documentationThe Community Marine Biodiversity Online Register is the result of nearly a decade of work, according to Panippilla, including approximately four years of intensive underwater documentation.The team identified around 50 natural ecosystems beneath the sea off Thiruvananthapuram, he said. The register also includes artificial ecosystems, sunken ships and other underwater features, with separate sections covering biodiversity and ecosystems.The work brought together knowledge from fishing communities with underwater observations and species identification involving researchers and professional divers, including Jestin Jos.Panippilla said the register should not be treated as a finished scientific record. Instead, its online format is intended to allow researchers, students, fishers and members of the public to contribute additional observations and correct errors.“When we publish it online, we make it clear that this is a community effort and that these are the community's findings,” he said.“If there are any mistakes, anyone can point them out and correct them. Anyone can also add new information to the register.”For FML, the register’s presentation is also about recognition: whether fishing communities are treated merely as sources of information for scientific research or acknowledged as knowledge holders whose contributions deserve attribution.This story was produced as part of the 2026 CBD COP17 Fellowship, operated by Informed Earth in collaboration with Internews’ Earth Journalism Network