Conserving aquatic biodiversity

Biodiversity is a term coined by E. O. Wilson (1988) to describe the number and variety of living organisms, at all scales; from individual parts of communities to ecosystems, regions, and the entire biosphere. This term includes the genetic diversity of individual species, the subpopulations of individual species, the total number of species in a region, the number of endemic species in an area, and the distribution of different ecosystems. Most of the aquatic environment is degrading day by day and their biotas are also decreasing.
New uses of aquatic biodiversity require new policy approaches. The introduction or expansion of food fish aquaculture, for example, creates the need for policy makers to consider a wide variety of issues such as environmental impacts of fish farming, potential health risks to consumers of genetically modified products, access of fish farmers to wild brood-stock and transfers of live brood-stock from their ecosystems of origin, research into the different genetic characteristics of different wild stocks and conservation of wild genetic diversity.
The 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), signed by 188 countries (the handful that have not signed includes the US), links these diverse policy issues through its three objectives: the conservation of biological diversity; the sustainable use of its components; and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits derived from the use of genetic resources. The CBD provides guidelines for national policies and laws. But most countries are still a long way from implementing them because of the complexity of creating legislation that is clear, widely supported and enforceable.