During the "World Shrimp Market 99" recently held in Madrid, members of Greenpeace Spain and several Latin American NGOs expressed their protest against the expansion of this depredatory activity, by unfurling three large banners reading: "No new shrimp farms - Stop the shrimp industry", "Shrimp farming - Mangroves destruction" and "Shrimp Industry Meeting - Mangrove Death". " Fifty per cent of mangrove areas have already disappeared. At present the shrimp industry goes on jeopardising tropical coastlines of developing countries and their local communities, in order to put tropical shrimps on your table" expressed the activists to the media.
Elmer Lopez from Greenpeace International and Jorge Varela from CODDEFFAGOLF of Honduras, who were at the same time attending the meeting, made a presentation of the environmentalists' viewpoint to those attending the proceedings. The Spanish authorities committed themselves to include mangrove conservation as a priority in their Araucaria biodiversity project, which is being carried out by the Spanish Cooperation Agency. Spain is the main consumer of Ecuadorian shrimp, whose production has nearly completely destroyed the mangroves of the Pacific coast in that country.
Source: Elmer Lopez,