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According to research commissioned by the Census for Marine Life, the number of species in the world's oceans is 2.2m, and the total for the whole planet at 8.74m (plus or minus 1.3m). The figure is a vast improvement on previous estimates. And the number of species we share the planet with does matter. One of the researchers state, "If we didn't know - even by an order of magnitude (1m? 10m? 100m?) - the number of people in a nation, how could we plan for the future?" At its most basic, if we don't know what we've got, we can't protect it, and we can't even be sure what we're losing. [Source: BBC News]
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