Promoting responsible use and conservation of aquatic biodiversity for sustainable aquaculture development.

The world’s wealth of aquatic biodiversity at the gene, species and ecosystem levels provides great potential for the aquaculture sector to enhance its contribution to food security and meet future challenges in feeding a growing human population. To realize and explore this potential, issues of access and use of aquatic genetic resources for aquaculture need to be considered. A global approach to responsible use and conservation, effective policies and plans, better information including characterization of aquatic genetic resources at different levels, and wider use of genetic applications in aquaculture are * Corresponding author: J.Benzie@ucc.ie Global Conference on Aquaculture 2010 – Farming the Waters for People and Food 338 identified as some of the important elements needed towards an improved management of aquatic genetic resources for aquaculture, and all of these issues are dealt with in this review.