8.Over the last few years, our understanding of the impacts of anthropogenic activities on marine biodiversity has increased. Science and technology have opened up new frontiers in the oceans. What was once regarded as featureless, unchanging and inexhaustible is now known to be complex, dynamic and finite. These same advances are also increasing human impacts on remote, deep and little known areas. Once limited largely to shipping and high seas fishing, commercial activities at sea are expanding rapidly and plunging ever deeper. Deep sea fishing, marine scientific research and energy development, are already taking place at significant depths. Military operations and seismic exploration have also intensified throughout the oceans, with growing impacts on deep water and high seas ecosystems and biodiversity. While the prospects of commercial deep sea bed mining are still uncertain, efforts worldwide to develop the deep sea resources facilitated by advances in technologies are likely to grow more systematically (UN General Assembly, A/62/66/Add.2, page 8-9).(20分)