fw: Shrimp leaves environmental aftertaste

["Thai Nguyen" <tinguyen@nortel.ca>]

By Elizabeth May


You've probably seen the advertisements for "all you can eat shrimp" dinners at "low, low prices." But the bill
rarely reflects the true costs of shrimp production, a price paid for by the environment and by rural
communities.

The raising of the tiny crustacean involves the destruction of coastal tropical forests, contamination of water supplies and loss
of farmland.

Shrimp is a fast growing export commodity, grown in intensive aquaculture ponds in countries from Thailand to Ecuador,
India to Nicaragua. The big boom in shrimp aquaculture began in the mid-1980's as wild fisheries went in crisis. Aquaculture
became a lucrative new source of foreign exchange earnings, and the invasion of shrimp to wealthy countries continues today.

Shrimp farms require salt water, making tropical coastlines a perfect haven. This is also the natural home of mangrove
forests, which are being cleared across the tropics at an alarming rate. Mangroves are vitally important, providing a range of
critical services from preventing salt intrusion into the land base, providing a "nursery" for local fisheries, and helping protect
coastal communities from the ravages of tropical storms. According to the United Nations, half of the world's mangrove forests
have disappeared, and over half of this loss is due to shrimp aquaculture.

Shrimp larvae are collected from the wild in fine nets, causing significant mortality in other species whose larvae is also
caught up in the nets. For every shrimp larvae caught, 15 other species are caught, killed and discarded. Ironically, the
quantities of natural shrimp in areas with shrimp farms have declined because mangroves are the shrimps' primary
nurseries. As a result, there is a growing shortage of the wild juvenile shrimp needed to stock the artificial ponds and an
increasing need to purchase larvae from hatcheries.

Once in the ponds, as in many monoculture situations, the shrimp are highly susceptible to disease and pest outbreak. Large
amounts of antibiotics and synthetic chemicals are used to prevent outbreak. These chemicals often leach into surrounding
fields and, combined with increased salinization of land caused by the clearing of mangrove forests, severely jeopardize local
farming. 

Shrimp aquaculture is now a major source of conflict at the community level. In Bangladesh, as in other tropical countries,
low-lying coastal farm lands are flooded with salt water to create ponds for shrimp production. In a country where land is the
major resource, shrimp production creates hostility between urban-based shrimp merchants and farmers who are losing
access to the land they have always used for farming and grazing.

Shrimp production is often cited by the World Bank as an important opportunity for poor countries to earn foreign exchange.
However, the benefits of the industry are dubious. Environmental costs, for example, are rarely considered in cost-benefit
calculations. An India Supreme Court inquiry calculated that the industry is a net economic drain resulting in job losses and
the destruction of once sustainable livelihoods in many coastal areas. 

Vandana Shiva, noted Indian environmentalist, has estimated that for every shrimp pond in India, 15 jobs are created running
the pond operation, 50 people are hired as a security force and tens of thousands of people are displaced. In Andhra Pradesh, a
province of India, 48,000 people were displaced within three years of a result of aquaculture development. Shrimp farming
mainly benefits wealthy outside investors, not the rural communities they are located in. Local farmers have had their land
expropriated in some cases, while in most debt or low prices for traditional crops force many farmers to sell to industry
investors.

The impact of shrimp production on local people and resources is similar to the impact of other monocultures such as bananas,
sugar, tea and coffee. It transfers resources out of local communities, concentrating those resources for the benefit of a few. It
also deprives local communities of their traditional access to land and water, while permanently altering and degrading the
environment. 

So where do all these shrimp go? To supermarkets and restaurants in Canada and the rest of the industrialized world. Next
time you are in a restaurant, ask where their shrimp comes from. Nine times out of ten, the answer will be a place such as
Thailand or Ecuador. Knowing the environmental and social costs of that "all you can eat shrimp meal-deal" should lesson
your appetite for shrimp. 

Many communities throughout the Majority world are mobilizing to stop the advance of shrimp aquaculture. One such story
comes from Thailand, where in just a few years production has jumped from 14,000 tons to over 100,000 tons, making the
Southeast Asian country the worlds leading exporter of shrimp. In the coastal village of Chao Mai, fish catches began
declining substantially in the mid-1980s, and subsequently so were the economic fortunes of the villagers. They soon discovered
that the nearby mangrove forest and sea-grass beds -- the feeding grounds for locally-caught fish -- were being destroyed due
to commercial shrimp farming. With support from the community development group 'Yad Fon' (meaning raindrop), the
community began collectively nurturing their mangrove forest, and created a sea-grass conservation zone which has grown
over the years. Now, catches are increasing and the situation is getting better. Chao Mai is proving that a small-scale,
selective-gear fishing industry can survive, maybe even flourish.