coral reefs are thousands of years old with the youngest being from 5,240 years old at Salaya although these coral clusters grow at a rate of 1 cm to 10 cm a year. Conservation Conservation within the Gulf of Kutch have aimed to curb the collapse of local ecosystems in the last century. Before the Marine National Park and Sanctuary no government supported environment protect existed in the region. Conservation efforts have been extensive in maintaining a large area although the growing industrialisation, tourism and climate change marine diversity has been reduced. The Gulf of Kutch Marine National Park and Sanctuary (MNPS) The Gulf of Kutch Marine National Park and Sanctuary (MNPS) was established in 1980 with the creation of the first marine sanctuary and park in response to a number of notifications received by the state of Gujarat. These first installations covered the islands that are located along the coast of Saurashtra with the inter tidal sectors becoming the first National Park areas. In recognition of the for their conservation efforts MNPS were classified by the Wildlife Institute of India as a part of the West coast Biotic Province in 1982. The area the MNPS covers include 148.92 km^2 of 42 islands and 309 km^2 of inter tidal zone. 162.89 km^2 is dedicated as National Park area with the remaining classified as sanctuary land. Under the Wild Life Protection Act of 1972 this means that no human intrusion is permitted in the park regions but certain rights may be permitted in sanctuaries such as fishing. Initially, the MNPS was established to protect regions with rich ecosystems but since the 1991 Coastal Zone Regulation Notification coral reefs as well as mangroves have been included in this protection. Coral Reefs are regions of extreme biodiversity but can also be extremely fragile under certain conditions. It has been observed using satellite data that all coral reefs combined have shrunk 43% between 1975 and 1986 with an almost 100 km^2 loss. The reason for this coral damage was due to sediment covering the coral preventing sun light from entering. As a result it starved the coral of nutrients leading to death. The main cause of the mud was due to coral dredging by a nearby cement company. As a result of these findings bans were placed on coral mining near protected areas, and between 1985 and 1991 coral reefs started to increase in