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Shrimp Farms Menace Latin American Mangroves By Nuria Bolaños and Diane Jukofsky TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, October 5, 2002 (ENS) - Governmental policies, illegal logging, development and particularly U.S. and European consumers' appetites for shrimp are fueling the devastating loss of mangrove forests along much of Latin America's coasts. Mangroves are rainforests by the sea. These tropical maritime trees have many prop roots that form an impenetrable mass and play an important role in land-building, acting as an interface between land and sea. With their salt-filtering roots and salt-excreting leaves, mangroves occupy saline wetlands where other plants cannot live. Shallow inter-tidal mangrove wetlands provide refuge and nursery grounds for juvenile fish, crabs, shrimps, and mollusks, and shelter for birds.
Along the coasts of Latin America, mangrove destruction has ruined natural wildlife habitats, crippled local economies, and upset coastal cultures. Alarmed nongovernment organizations (NGOs) in eight Latin American countries and the United States have banded together to try to stem the loss. The NGOs, members of the Latin American Mangrove Network for the Defense of Coastal Ecosystems and Community Life, met in Venezuela last March to plan a strategy for working together to "defend mangrove forests and coastal ecosystems, guaranteeing their vitality and that of the people who live near them from the threats and impacts of activities that are likely to degrade the environment....and violate the rights of local communities," according to the group's new charter. Jorge Varela, director of the Committee for the Defense and Development of the Flora and Fauna of the Gulf of Honduras (CODDEFFAGOLF in Spanish), has fought expansion of shrimp farms in Honduras for more than 20 years. CODDEFFAGOLF is a founding member of the network, which Varela says will "back efforts of member organizations as they work to protect mangrove forests in their own countries." "Shrimp industries are expanding all along the coasts of Latin America, without any concern for the environmental and social damages they are creating," warns Elmer López, international coordinator for the Shrimp Aquaculture Campaign of the Guatemala office of Greenpeace, a Mangrove Network member. To install shrimp farms, large ponds are dug along coastlines, and any mangroves or wetlands in the way are destroyed. The ponds are stocked with shrimp larvae and fish feed. After about four months, the ponds are drained, and the adult shrimp gathered, cleaned, and frozen for shipping, mostly to the U.S. and Europe.
The farms offer little local employment, while residents who depended on healthy coastal ecosystems for food, timber, fuel, and productive farmland are often displaced and impoverished. Mangrove destruction has profound ecological impacts. Mangroves buffer mainlands from the strong storms that often hit tropical coasts, build up nutrient-rich soils along coastlines, and are the natural nurseries for sea creatures like shrimp, oysters, crab, and tarpon, which feed and provide livelihoods to millions of people. Mangroves are also prime nesting and resting areas for hundreds of bird species. CODDEFFAGOLF has had some success in its fight to protect mangroves in Honduras. They helped win declaration of a stretch of Pacific coastline as a protected Ramsar site, an international designation given to important wetland areas under the Convention on Wetlands signed in Ramsar, Iran in 1971. In 2000, the government designated part of the same coastline as a national protected area. "These are impressive achievements," Varela agrees, "but the destruction continues just the same." While CODDEFFAGOLF has filed hundreds of legal complaints, he points out that "not one ecological delinquent has been punished." Varela blames the Honduran government for not enforcing mangrove-protection laws, and he also points a finger at international financial agencies, such as the World Bank and U.S. Agency for International Development, which he says have often encouraged shrimp farming by providing favorable loans. "Maybe they have good intentions," he says, "but what their assistance brings is more hunger and poverty." López hopes that the Mangrove Network, which is funded by the Dutch Humanist Institute for Development Cooperation, will help call international attention to the importance of mangroves and the threats to their survival. For the first time, he says, groups concerned about coastal resources conservation in Latin America are working together. Since every Latin American country save Bolivia and Paraguay has at least one coastline - seven have two - ecologically healthy coastlines are important to hundreds of millions of people and countless wildlife species. Read more about this project on the Eco-Index at: www.eco-index.org/search/results.cfm?ProjectID=318 and www.eco-index.org/search/results.cfm?ProjectID=319 {Nuria Bolaños and Diane Jukofsky are with the Neotropics Communications program of the Rainforest Alliance.} Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2002. All rights reserved. |
Mangroves in the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras (Photo courtesy 
Shrimp farmer monitors oxygen levels in shrimp growing pond. (Photo courtesy 