May 21, 2004

UK London Campaign Group Claims Shrimp Farming Cause "Environment Crisis"

The explosive growth of shrimp farming in developing nations, many in Asia, has caused a 'shocking environmental crisis' of deforestation and pollution, a campaign group charged on Wednesday.

A report by the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) highlighted what it called 'a truly shocking catalogue of environmental damage' in shrimp-farming nations, also found in Central America and, to a lesser extent, Africa.

The 77-page publication, called 'Farming the Sea, Costing the Earth', detailed what the group said was a series of environmental costs such as the destruction of mangrove forests and the depletion of other maritime stocks.

The farming of shrimps, also known as prawns, has increased rapidly in a number of poor countries over recent years, with Thailand, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Bangladesh the top five producers by weight.

The trade had been hailed as an environmentally friendly way of allowing such countries to produce and export food while allowing natural seafood stocks to recover, but the EJF report said this view was misplaced.