Freshwater fish in crisis, a Blue Planet perspective

The challenges of conserving freshwater fish species are daunting, Aquatic ecosystems are poorly understood, relatively unmanageable, shared by multip le users and highly vulnerable to human interventions. The 'cocktail of thr eats' to freshwater fish includes, dams, pollution, interbasin transfers, a lien introductions, all mainly due to a burgeoning global human population. Worldwide, freshwater fish species (which make up 25% of the world's verte brates whilst occurring in only 0.01% of the Blue Planet's water) are being threatened. High extinction rates are forecast and yet even in educated ci rcles there is a "So what?" attitude to this crisis. In this paper we discu ss what is happening to the freshwater fish faunas of the globe and why, bu r more importantly what should be done and how. There are several options i ncluding a cyberspace route, For surely it is time for the global village t o focus on fresh water - the reason our planet is habitable.