The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has been requested by its Members, through the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, to assess the status of aquatic biodiversity used in aquaculture and to develop tools and policy responses to address the principal needs and challenges for effective management of this key resource . Following on from the publication of The State of the World’s Aquatic Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture in 2019, FAO developed, in active consult ation with members, The Global Plan of Action for the Conservation, Sustainable Use and Development of Aquatic Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as a policy response. This Global Plan of Action is a voluntary, non-binding policy framework, adopted by FAO Members in 2021, that identifies key strategic priorities and actions that countries and the international community should undertake for a more responsible management of aquaculture species, and their farmed types (the equivalent of livestock breeds and crops for the aquaculture sector) and wild stocks.
Information is power and availability of clear, consistent and harmonized information on the status of genetic resources, especially at the level below species (farmed types and wild stocks), promotes clearer understanding of the priority needs prevalent in individual countries and can inform the development of appropriate strategies, policies, management plans and human resource cap acity. Very few countries possess information systems on their aquatic genetic resources and those that exist are not harmonized . FAO is addressing this need through the development and application of AquaGRIS, a global information system for aquatic genetic resources . A prototype of AquaGRIS was release in 2021 and a fully functional version was released in late 2023. FAO is now supporting countries to develop national registries of their genetic resources.
Whilst Africa has very few developed farmed types (strains and varieties) the continent is home to key reservoirs of genetic diversity for several key global aquaculture species, most notably the tilapias, mullet and Clariid catfish. Due to the limited numbers of farmed types in African aquaculture and the paucity of information on wild stocks, the scale of the task for the creation on national registries is quite achievable for many African countries. FAO is looking to engage with national focal points for African members to support them to create national registrie s of their aquatic genetic resources which can not only inform the effective conservation and sustainable use of these resources but can also be the basis for effective measures for access and benefit sharing related to resources of global significance.