It has recently become evident that there is a worldwide need to accelerate the development of aquatic resources if the productivity of food from the oceans, rivers and lakes is to increase beyond the level that it is at the present time. Essentially, there has been no major increase in the offtake of aquatic resources during the past ten years. Food from the sea has stabilized at approximately 70 million metric tons although it is expected that this could increase to in excess of 100 million tons. Aquaculture, although it has a potential for producing approximately 50 million metric tons yearly, is now at the level of only 6 million tons. leans must be found to understand the basic constraints which limit aquatic animal populations and the factors that can be manipulated so that these populations can yield greater numbers. In order to do that we rust find mechanisms to tap the technological resources that are to he found disbursed throughout many institutions of the world and bring these to hear on specific, identifiable problems and translate those into development projects. ICLARn has been established to achieve that end.