Aquaculture is the cultivation of aquatic animals and plants in natural or controlled marine or freshwater environments, whereas mariculture is restricted to marine and estuarine (brackish) waters. On a worldwide scale, aquaculture is a fast-growing industry, showing a 12-fold increase between 1980 and 2010, or average annual growth of 8.8 per cent (FAO 2012). Recent statistics show that growth has slowed, with food fish annual production rates decreasing from 9.5 per cent (1990-2000) to 6.2 per cent (2000-2012) (FAO 2014). World production through aquaculture increased to 90.4 million tonnes in 2012 (66.6 million tonnes food fish and 23.8 million tonnes aquatic plants; FAO 2014) with about 50 per cent of production originating from mariculture (Figure 22.1). This is in stark contrast with the global levelling off in harvests from capture fisheries, at about 80 million tonnes per year since the mid 1990’s (FAO 2014).