Throughout the world, tree plantations and the installation of pulp mills are promoted by governments using, among others, the argument that these activities generate employment. However the true situation shows how false this argument is.
Bulletin articles
There are clearly two conflicting international agendas, one positive and another negative. The former, officialized in international fora such as the 1992 Earth Summit and its related conventions and processes, is aimed at the sustainable use of resources for the benefit of the present and future generations. But there is another international agenda, aimed at increasing production, trade and consumption of all types of products, regardless of their sustainability, for the benefit of private business and governments.
Every November 7th, the Korunamoyee Memorial Day takes place in Harinkhola. Korunamoyee Sardar has become a symbol of the struggle for land rights and against shrimp farming among the landless people in Bangladesh. I asked some people to tell me what happened that day, ten years ago.
Located to the East of Africa, Madagascar is the largest island in the Indian Ocean and its fauna and flora are highly endemic. Mangrove forests cover an area of 327,000 hectares, composed of seven tree species accompanied by an extremely diverse fauna.
The Nigerian area of saline mangrove swamps stretches through the coastal states with 504,800 hectares in the Niger Delta and 95,000 hectares in Cross River State. The mangrove forests of Nigeria rank as the largest in Africa and as the third largest in the world.
The plans to build the world's largest shrimp aquaculture facility in the Rufiji Delta of Tanzania have encountered strong opposition from local people (see WRM Bulletin 40).
On Nov. 7, 1990, Koronamoyee Sardar was killed by an armed gang of hired thugs whose aim was to set up a shrimp farm at Horinkhola Polder 22. The local villagers, led by Koronamoyee, resisted this invasive force. On that fateful day, Koronamoyee became a martyr for her cause, and in the eyes of her people she remains their heroine in their decade long ongoing struggle against the surrounding oppressor.
Shrimp farming has been practised in Indonesia for hundreds of years. Shrimps were traditionally cultivated in paddy fields or in ponds combined with fishes, without significantly altering the mangrove forest. Due to recent increase in market demand, the method has been changed into intensive and semi-intensive, with much less respect to local ecosystems and people.
The shrimp industry in Malaysia has developed rapidly since the early 1980s after the so-called successes experienced in neighbouring Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines. Malaysia, however, is not one of the major producers of cultured marine prawn in the world, as the area under marine prawn culture is about 5,100 hectares (2,627 hectares in 1995). Despite this, the Government of Malaysia is very proud to claim that the country's average production (metric tonnes per hectare) is the third highest in the world, after Taiwan and Thailand.
In the 1980s, shrimp farming became an industry when commercial availability of new technology from Taiwan, along with attractive export prices, led to the Shrimp Fever that swept the country and the rest of Asia. Filipino farmers shifted from milkfish (Chanos chanos) to shrimp, as well as intensified their culture systems from traditional and extensive to higher stocking densities.
Thailand has been the world's No. 1 producer and exporter of farmed shrimp for a number of years, with the shrimp boom starting in the early 1980's. The country's total shrimp output reached 300,000 tonnes last year, higher than the annual average of 200,000 to 250,000 tonnes, thanks to a supply shortage in the world market. Despite this, during 2001, shrimp farmer and exporter associations have asked the government to speedily implement a national policy encouraging shrimp farming to prepare for tougher export competition from neighbouring countries.
Governments in Southeast Asia have promoted shrimp farming as a means to earning foreign exchange. The beneficiaries of this expansion are private companies such as the Thai agribusiness company, Charoen Pokphand. In Thailand, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, Charoen Pokphand and the Thai government worked together to set the scene for expanding the shrimp industry. Companies setting up shrimp farming operations in Thailand were offered generous subsidies including tax breaks, tariff-free imports, tax holidays and export credits.