Shrimp is no longer the luxury food that it once was: in 2001 it surpassed canned tuna as the number one seafood consumed in the United States. From Thailand to Ecuador, a number of developing nations have created large-scale shrimp production industries. In Brazil, shrimp production has been growing by more than 50 percent a year, increasing from 3,600 tons in 1997 to 91,000 tons in 2003. Exports alone reached $258 million in 2004. More recently however, Brazilís shrimp production has declined due to disease and adverse weather conditions. The devaluation of the dollar has also reduced shrimp-related revenues in local currency terms. In addition, the United States has restricted the importation of foreign shrimp in order to protect domestic producers and as a result, Brazil now exports 90% of its production to Europe.
Unfortunately, shrimp farming has serious social and environmental side effects, largely related to the destruction of coastal mangrove forests and subsistence fishing practices. According to the Mangrove Action Project (MAP), mangrove forests are one of the most productive and bio-diverse wetlands on earth. Growing in the intertidal areas and estuary mouths between land and sea, mangroves provide critical habitat for a diverse marine and terrestrial flora and fauna. However, these unique coastal tropical forests are among the most threatened habitats in the world. In many areas, mangrove deforestation is contributing to a decline in fish stocks, the degradation of clean water supplies, the salinization of coastal soils, erosion and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
One of the principle causes of the destruction of mangroves is the establishment of shrimp farms. Families who have previously earned their living by fishing and collecting shellfish in and around the mangroves are cast aside when these mangroves are wiped out. Antibiotics, pesticides, and other chemicals used in the shrimp farming process and the waste created by the shrimp themselves, pollute the coastal water and threaten the fish population. As a result, opposition to the industry is growing.
The community of Caravelas, in the Brazilian state of Bahia, is facing the decision of whether or not to allow the construction of the largest shrimp farm in the country (1,517 hectares). Given the ecologically sensitive nature of the region and the problems associated with shrimp farming, including the lack of industry oversight, environmental groups are rallying opposition to the proposed Caravelas project. The proposed location of this farm is within an 11,000 hectare, healthy mangrove ecosystem. In addition, the farm would be adjacent to the National Marine Park of Abrolhos, an extensive coral reef that is home to the highest marine biodiversity in the South Atlantic. From a local economic perspective, damaging the mangroves in Caravelas would directly impact 300 families who derive their livelihood from shellfish collecting, farming and fishing. Throughout the region, 20,000 people are involved in artisanal fishing and thus, directly dependent on the quality of the local estuaries such as the ones in Caravelas.
One such group is a Global Greengrants’ grantee, Instituto Terramar. Based some 800 miles to the north of Caravelas in the northeastern coastal state of Cear·, Terramar’s mission is to improve the quality of life in coastal communities by promoting integrated and locally-based development initiatives. Terramar is a network partner of the international, non-governmental organization MAP, the Mangrove Action Project. MAP is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and restoration of the world’s mangrove forest ecosystems and the traditional communities that depend on them.
Upon learning about a proposed community hearing in Caravelas to promote the construction of the shrimp farm, Terramar and MAP quickly organized a group of community leaders and activists from Ceará, which had already been negatively affected by industrial shrimp farming. The group included fisherfolk, shellfish collectors, indigenous leaders and academics. The goal was to enlist the support of these people to educate the Caravelas community on the impacts of shrimp farming and to increase the level of public participation in the community hearing. This concept of leveraging the experience of one community and sharing it with another is a vital step towards local empowerment. Often times, a community is told by the promoters of a particular project how and why they will benefit from it. The community does not have the means to independently verify such claims. Community-to-community dialogue addresses this vacuum of information.
Global Greengrants, working with the Earth Island network, quickly responded to the urgent request for funds to cover the costs for six community representatives to travel from Ceará to Caravelas. That Terramar-organized group arrived in Caravelas one week before the community hearing, and local activists organized neighborhood meetings in which the people from Ceará shared their shrimp farming experiences with the people of Caravelas. A video illustrating the realities of shrimp farming in Ceará was shown which had a significant impact on the local community and added a sense of urgency to the planning for the community hearing. Terramar participated in the critique of the socio-economic and environmental impact assessments of the proposed farm presented by the project’s consultants. Community members made signs and posters and coordinated the campaign to maximize the turn-out for the hearing.
If the government and COOPEX (the company pursuing the project) expected an easy afternoon, they were quite mistaken. Community members began arriving two hours before the event and continued to pour in up until the start of the hearing. All told, 500 people attended. Apparently, the mayor of Caravelas and COOPEX had a plan to pack the meeting with supporters of the project. Fortunately, the turn-out by the anti-shrimp crowd was just as successful and equally vociferous.
The hearing was structured so that the President of COOPEX, representatives of Bahia Pesca (which is the government agency that promotes aquaculture in the region) and consultants responsible for the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) were all given the opportunity to make presentations to the community. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, those who opposed the project were not given the chance to make a presentation. They could only ask questions of the presenters. However, the questions posed by the anti-shrimp coalition concerning employment, the use of chemicals, ground water contamination, the state of the Brazilian shrimp industry, pollution and the impact on wild fish stocks, exposed the numerous contradictions, omissions, technical errors and even outright lies embedded in the proposed project and the associated EIA. Nine hours later, the meeting ended.
While no decisions were taken at the meeting, the supporters of the project had certainly overestimated their ability to steamroll the community. Once organized and given the chance to educate themselves on the negative side-effects of shrimp farming, those opposed to the project have at a minimum, slowed the process down for now. Terramar will continue to work with these community groups to prepare a series of documents that can be used to support possible legal actions and civil suits. In the words of the Latin American Coordinator of the Mangrove Action Project, Elaine Corets, who participated in the week’s activities as an advisor to Terramar, “the battles are only just beginning.”
Update: Shrimp Farm Suspended, then Allowed to Continue
On March 30th, in response to a lawsuit filed by members of the Caravelas community, a judge declared a preliminary injunction against the proposed shrimp farm. All phases of the environmental licensing process were suspended.
Then, on May 19, the Bahia’s State Environmental Council voted to approve the “location permit” for the COOPEX shrimp farm. According to Elaine Corets, “The meeting was marked by strong maneuvers by the state government and by the presence of a large group of representatives of the Caravelas mayor’s office and of COOPEX (as was to be expected). But they haven’t won the war.”
For more on the issue, see the Mangrove Action Project website.