Oil sardines, the backbone of the traditional marine fisheries in Kerala, is showing early signs of a recovery after recording the lowest level of catch in two decades in 2016. Scientists at the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI) said on Tuesday that the total oil sardine landings went up to 1.25 lakh tonnes in 2017, a remarkable turnaround from the 45,000-tonne level last year. Given the current trend, oil sardines catch should go up to substantially healthier levels by 2020 though there was no guarantee against the cyclical nature of the fisheries, said a member of the team of scientists at the CMFRI studying oil sardine fisheries, among other issues. Senior scientist V. Kripa attributed the oil sardine recovery to human intervention in better resource management as well as to environmental factors such as better food availability and higher oxygen levels in the sea off the Kerala coast. There had been concerted efforts to end juvenile fishing despite differences of opinion on the issue among stakeholders. At the same time, the scientist warned that a collapse in catch like the one seen recently could not be allowed to be repeated given the intricacies of problems such as climate change. Even as the sea conditions appeared to have improved in favour of oil sardine fisheries. Dr. Kripa did not rule out the existence of adverse sea conditions highlighted by jelly fish blooms abetted largely by human activity. Oil sardines constitute about 80% of the catch by ring seines. Oil sardines also decide the fate of more than two lakh traditional fishermen in the State, where the fish is considered a delicacy, accessible even to the lowest income groups. The scarcity of oil sardines in 2015-16 resulted, though briefly, in import of sardines from Oman for local consumption and the fish from Oman was sold at a marginal premium. Oil sardine landing has come down from as high as about four lakh tonnes in 2012 to a little over 45,000 tonnes in 2016. A report by the CMFRI in 2015, submitted to the State government, said that the fisheries sector in Kerala lost about Rs.150 crore due to the sharp drop in oil sardine catch. Traditional fishermen had claimed that the cumulative loss due to the fall in oil sardine catch was in the range of Rs.10,000 crore.