



It is uncertain as to what extent the Convention codifies customary international law. UNCLOS came into force in 1994, a year after Guyana became the 60th nation to ratify the treaty. UNCLOS replaced the four treaties of the 1958 Convention on the High Seas. The Convention resulted from the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS III), which took place between 19. As of June 2016, 167 countries and the European Union are parties. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea ( UNCLOS), also called the Law of the Sea Convention or the Law of the Sea Treaty, is an international agreement that establishes a legal framework for all marine and maritime activities. United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea at Wikisource In the 21 st century, around the African Great Lakes the keyword is survival, not only of biodiversity, but also of the inhabitants of their basins.Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish How to reach them in areas where there is no municipal electricity supply, no portable phone network, nor internet facilities. The way forward will be to involve local fishing communities in nature conservation and management, but there are many communities and many fishermen.

The Great Lakes surrounding these countries, by means of conventions and regional management bodies, sought to protect the environments and called for international collaboration to improve management of the natural resources, both terrestrial and aquatic. Lake Victoria has a long history of fish introductions and invasive weeds, but on Lake Tanganyika the original species composition of many taxa can still be preserved and protected, at a cost. Should this biodiversity be protected in times of sheer poverty of the riparian populations? Should it be exposed to exploitation for food security? What are the values of these endemic species in economic terms? This article reviews the impacts on biodiversity by human-induced factors like exotic fish introductions and the invasive water hyacinth, but also by indirect factors like climate change. The usual sources of perturbation when speaking about Great Lakes also have their impacts on the African Great Lakes, such as overfishing, dumping of untreated sewage, pebble and sand mining, agricultural run-off and other threats. Some of the characteristics of the African Great Lakes are the numerous species of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, plankton, and other phyla, most of them endemic.
