Appetite for Destruction
shrimp farming
by Dr Mike Shanahan
The Ecologist magazine, March
22, 2003
Shrimp has always been associated with
the small and the puny. Why then is this seemingly harmless crustacean
inspiring angry protests throughout the developing world, and
why have so many people died as a result? Dr Mike Shanahan investigates.
Susan, a middle-aged cashier in a London
high street bank, has developed a penchant for prawns. Ten years
ago tiger prawns (also called shrimp) were beyond her budget
a rare treat reserved for birthdays and other celebrations. Nowadays,
she finds them more affordable and consumes them with gusto at
every given opportunity. In contrast, Sri Lankan fisherman Anil
caught enough fish to sell and feed his family a decade ago. Today,
he struggles to fill his nets and often goes to bed hungry. His
eight-year-old son regularly misses school to help his mother
find drinking water or his father catch fish. Although the lives
of Susan and Anil could hardly be more different they are, of
course, closely linked.
Shrimp: crustacean of devastation Last
year diners in the industrialised nations of Europe, North America
and Japan peeled, chewed and dribbled their way through over a
million tonnes of farmed shrimps worth over $7 billion. Shrimp,
it would seem, is manna from heaven. It's abundant, protein-rich,
eminently tasty and readily adaptable to the full range of the
world's cuisines. But, as new research by the Environmental Justice
Foundation reveals, the true costs of consuming shrimp are dangerously
high.
Shrimp has traditionally been trawled
from the ocean in arguably the most inefficient fisheries practice
on the planet. The effect of trawl nets on ecological communities
on the ocean floor is the underwater equivalent of clear-cutting
forests. Although shrimp trawlers provide only 2 per cent of the
world's seafood, they haul in a third of all the global fishing
industry's 'by-catch'. In that by-catch over 400 marine species
have been identified. Nonetheless it is all discarded most
of it dead because of its low economic value relative to
that of shrimp. In some shrimp fisheries, by-catch levels of up
to 20kg for every 1kg of shrimp have been recorded. The species
affected include rare turtles, 150,000 of which are estimated
to be caught as by-catch annually.
To the uninitiated, the concept of farming
shrimp might be quite idyllic perhaps conjuring images of
rosy-cheeked, straw-sucking pastoralists leaning over fences to
watch their shell-bound charges grow until sufficiently sized
to take to market. The reality is less bucolic. In fact, shrimp
farming is more of an industrial than an agricultural phenomenon.
Having been responsible for widespread clearance of productive
land and mangrove forests, shrimp farming is also heavily reliant
upon the use of water pumps, aerators and chemical inputs of pesticides,
disinfectants, steroid hormones and antibiotics including
chemicals banned for use in food production by the EU and US.
Many of these chemicals are hazardous to human health. The wider
environment is also threatened by the release of effluent from
shrimp farms into surrounding waters.
The effects of shrimp farming can be swift
and devastating for coastal communities. Livelihoods that have
sustained communities for generations have been disrupted, and
human rights abuses widespread. As a result, a brutal struggle
is being waged on the coasts of some of the world's poorest countries,
with grassroots campaigners lining up against the giant shrimp-
farming industry.
Dying for our dinner? In April 2002,
father of four Sebastião Marques de Souza became the latest
casualty in this struggle. Sebastião was a community activist
protesting the expansion of shrimp farms into the mangrove forests
of Brazil. One night, two men alleged by local campaigners
to be connected to the country's burgeoning shrimp-farming industry
approached him under the pretence of needing to buy some
petrol. They shot him dead.
Worldwide, opponents of the industry claim
that shrimp farming destroys lives and livelihoods of coastal
communities and that it causes significant environmental damage.
Worldwide, those who have voiced opposition to the industry have
been threatened, intimidated, beaten or silenced for good by bullets,
bombs and machete blades. People have been murdered in at least
11 countries.
In Honduras, murders in the mangroves
are no longer a cause of surprise 12 small-scale fishermen
have been killed in as many years. Jorge Varela, director of a
local human rights and environmentalist group who has himself
received death threats on numerous occasions, has said: 'With
the complicity of our government, we have given away our people's
patrimony to a few national and foreign individuals, and we have
deprived thousands of persons of their livelihoods. We have turned
the blood of our people into an appetiser.' These sentiments
are common to poor, vulnerable and often landless communities
that have risen up in protest at the way shrimp farms have blocked
access to the coast, reduced local fish catches, and destroyed
mangrove forests that for generations have supplied food, medicines,
fuel and building materials.
It is not only fishing communities that
have an axe to grind about the impacts of shrimp farming. Rice
and cattle farmers have found their land rendered infertile and
their livestock prone to disease because of the infiltration of
salt water pumped in and out of shrimp ponds. In Bangladesh farmland
has been seized by force or deliberately polluted to ensure its
cheap sale to shrimp-farm owners. The country's coast has become
a hot spot of violence and intimidation. Local advocacy group
Nijera Kori estimates that over 150 people have died in incidents
directly related to the industry's expansion. Frequently implicated
in these murders are Bangladesh's 'musclemen' hired enforcers
paid by shrimp farmers to protect their interests and further
their ambitions. At demonstrations clashes have occurred between
landless protestors and police or these musclemen. Shrimp-farm
guards have caught and beaten to death innocent people wrongly
suspected of coming to steal shrimp. Witnesses in legal cases
linked to the industry have been murdered.
Profits for shrimp-farm owners can be
spectacular, and such is the avarice associated with the industry
that the practice of intimidating or eliminating opponents has
become widespread. A culture of impunity is typical of the major
shrimp-farming countries, which are characterised by corruption,
cronyism and gross inequity. The widespread lack of organisational
and economic equality between the industry and the communities
opposing it means that while the latter often have no recourse
to the law, the former often has little to fear from it.
In many countries, politicians and military
figures either have vested interests in, or own, shrimp farms.
It is less surprising, then, that army or police personnel have
been used to violently suppress protests or to seize land on which
to build shrimp ponds. A peaceful protest against illegal land
seizures by shrimp farmers in Bangladesh was brutally quelled
when police personnel opened fire. Four people were killed
including Peasant Women's Association leader Zaheda Begum
and 250 were wounded.
Profit and loss in a culture of corruption
The farming of marine species was initially promoted as a 'blue
revolution', supposedly capable of producing large volumes of
food without impacting marine stocks, and thereby increasing availability
of food for the hungry. International finance institutions like
the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank have actively endorsed
shrimp farming as a means of speeding development and alleviating
poverty in the developing countries where most shrimp farming
occurs. However, while some players in the industry have made
vast profits, the external costs are not borne by those who reap
the benefits. Rather, these costs are displaced onto some of the
poorest and most vulnerable communities. Furthermore, the financial
benefits of shrimp production often fail to trickle down to these
communities. As land has been seized or rendered unusable, hundreds
of thousands of rural poor have been displaced often to
cities or to other countries. 'If the mangroves disappear, we
shall eat garbage in the outskirts of the city; we shall become
prostitutes,' said one traditional shellfish collector in Ecuador,
where a single hectare of mangrove forest can provide food and
livelihoods for 10 families. By contrast, an Ecuadorian shrimp
farm of 110 hectares employs just six people during the preparation
of shrimp and a further five during the harvest. Likewise, in
Sri Lanka's Puttlam district nearly 20,000 lagoon fishers have
been obliged to move to the city in search of work as shrimp farming
has wiped out their traditional livelihoods. Civil society groups
have reported Sri Lankan refugees citing the spread of shrimp
farming as a factor contributing to their flight to the UK. Anil
the fisherman and Susan the bank clerk may yet meet.
For those who do not migrate to cities
or overseas, employment must be sought in the very industry that
deprived them of their livelihoods in the first place. Shrimp
fry are needed to stock the ponds and are harvested directly from
the sea. In Bangladesh, women work in the water for eight to 10
hours each day.
Illness is common. Some collect shrimp
fry near to the farms, where polluted water causes internal damage
and skin diseases. Gloves are not provided and hands begin to
rot. Conditions in processing plants also leave much to be desired.
Many female workers in Indian shrimp-peeling factories are reportedly
held virtual captives by the owners. They may sleep above the
processing units, where the inhalation of odours and ammonia refrigerants
is unavoidable. Common complaints include skin problems and backache
from standing for prolonged periods. Urinary tract infections
are linked to inadequate toilet facilities.
Handling ice-cold food for long hours
has also been linked to arthritis. In 2000, there were widespread
reports of processing plant workers having half their $30 monthly
salary deducted to pay for a daily meal of thin watery soup.
In a number of countries the salinisation
of water supplies and the reduced availability of food resources
associated with shrimp farming forces children to miss school
to help find food and water for their families. Children also
risk their health by working in the same unsanitary shrimp farm
and factory conditions as their elders. Shrimp industry child
labour has been reported in Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh, Thailand,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Peru, Ecuador and Burma.
The future Industrial shrimp farming
has experienced massive growth since its advent in the 1970s.
Shrimp is now farmed in over 50 largely tropical and sub-tropical
countries. Today nearly a third of shrimp eaten comes from these
farms. Shrimp recently overtook tuna as the top seafood in the
US, where an average of 1.9 kg of shrimp is consumed per person
per year. The industry's expansion is relentless, and new areas
of Africa's coastline are currently being targeted by investors.
Like so many activities that result in
resource-use conflict, shrimp farming is destined to continue
causing serious social problems. The roll call of martyrs will
keep growing unless the industry undergoes radical change. Just
as logging and oil exploration have become the focus of international
attention following exposure of their human rights and environmental
consequences, so there is an urgent need for scrutiny of shrimp
farming.
Whether stir-fried, barbecued or curried,
our passion for this tender crustacean is undeniable. However,
to sate our appetites, communities worldwide are becoming hungrier,
thirstier and less empowered to determine their own lives. This
is not a model of development of which to be proud.
The late Shri Banke Behary Das was a prominent
Indian environmental campaigner. His words, which resonate with
passion and poignancy, neatly encapsulate the essence of shrimp
farming's negative effects and identify the players most capable
of forcing a change us, the consumers. 'I say to those who
eat shrimp and only the rich people from industrialised
countries eat shrimp I say they are eating the blood, sweat
and livelihoods of the poor people of the Third World'.
Environmental Justice Foundation - www.ejfoundation.org/shrimp
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