Ecuador's Mangroves Need Protection from Shrimp Farmers
7/28/99
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: ENVIRONMENT-ECUADOR: Mangroves Need Protection from Shrimps
Source: InterPress Service
Status: Copyright 1999, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: July 28, 1999
Byline: Danielle Knight
MUISNE, Ecuador, July 28 (IPS) - Up to her knees in mud, where she
is looking for crabs, and other shellfish in the coastal mangrove
swamps here, Gladys Cortez shrugs her shoulders.
''Before, we could always find hundreds of conch shells and
crabs,'' she says wiping her forehead with the back of her hand.
''Since the shrimp farms started, however, there are now less and
less. How are we supposed to feed our families?''
Like thousands of other Ecuadoreans who live along the coast
who depend on the mangrove ecosystems for their livelihood, Cortez
traveled to this small island to demand an end to the expansion of
export-oriented commercial shrimp farms.
The shrimp farmers are blamed for destroying more than 65
percent of the Ecuador's mangrove habitat, and continue to expand
to meet the demand for shrimps by the United States, Japan, and
western Europe.
The National Coalition to Defend the Mangroves, comprised of
community groups and environmentalists, are currently holding a
week of activities ranging from reforestation projects to Marimba
dance concerts, to workshops on how to prepare traditional food
harvested from the mangroves.
''This industry is destroying our natural resources, and with
it our history, customs, and culture,'' the coalition announced in
a declaration that called for a moratorium on the development of
new shrimp farms.
The thick muddy swamps and dangling branches and root systems
of the mangroves that provide important habitat, protection and
nutrients for numerous fish, bird, mollusk and crustacean species.
By harvesting the wild shrimp, shells, crabs and fish,
thousands of families along have co-existed with the mangroves for
hundreds of years, without impacting the mangroves.
''Mangroves also purify the water and protect the coast from
erosion, storm and El Nino,'' says Lider Gongora, executive
director of FUNDECOL, an environmental organisation here.
All this began to change in the 1980s with the arrival of the
lucrative commercial shrimp farms which clear-cut the mangroves to
construct aqua culture ponds.
The net profits of the farms are so high that the idea caught
on and spread rapidly along the coast. Now shrimp are Ecuador's
third largest export after oil and bananas. Depending on how
large and intensive the farm, the gross income of one-hectare of
shrimp farms ranges from 5,000 to 15,000 US dollars per year.
Once cut, the mangrove cannot fully recover for more than 100
years and all the benefits from the ecosystem are lost, says Jose
Delgado, president of Ecological Coastal Committee, an
environmental group based in the coastal province of Guayas.
''The waste water from the farms also completely pollutes the
surrounding area with antibiotics and other chemicals used to
fight diseases that frequently plague the pools densely populated
with shrimp,'' he adds.
The National Chamber of Aquaculture, a powerful shrimp industry
trade association based in the coastal city of Guayaquil, argues
that commercial shrimp farms employ 200,000 workers in this
country.
But Gongora says that this is nothing compared the benefits
previously received by the mangroves. ''About 10 families can live
off of one hectare of mangrove swamp, while a shrimp farm of one
hectare only employs four people,'' he argues.
''Without a way to support themselves, many people have moved
to the cities where the unemployment problem is so serious many
end up turning to crime, drugs and prostitution in order to
survive.''
About 56 percent of the shrimp from farms in Ecuador is
exported to the United States, while 31 percent goes to Europe and
12 percent to Japan, according to the Quito-based Ecological
Action, an environmental group.
''There is a complete lack of awareness among consumers in other
countries who don't know the impact they are having here in
Ecuador by consuming shrimp from shrimp farms,'' says Elmer Lopez,
a campaigner with Greenpeace International, who took part in the
Muisne protest.
Worse, shrimp consumption by industrialised nations is expected
to increase in coming years as population rises.
In the United States, for example, shrimp consumption doubled
in the last decade to one billion pounds per year, making it one
of the most popular seafood in the country, according to the
Washington-based Worldwatch Institute.
While the destruction of the mangroves is prohibited by federal
law, FUNDECOL says the government has done nothing to stop their
destruction.
Gongora says the organisation has officially filed more than
100 complaints about different illegal shrimp farms in Esmeraldas.
Now, when FUNDECOL discovers an illegal shrimp farm it breaks the
muddy wall down before it the pool starts operation.
''And then if the damage is not too bad we try to replant
mangrove trees,'' adds Marcelo Cotera, who acts as president of
the organisation.
One of the main obstacles to protecting the environment from
shrimp farms, according to Yolanda Kakabadse, the Minister of
Environment, is an overworked judicial system that gives no
priority to preserving mangrove ecosystems.
''Mangrove areas were considered useless land and building the
shrimp farms was considered a way to make the land valuable,''
says Kakabadse, who co-signed a presidential decree last week
prohibiting the development of new shrimp farms.
Illegal shrimp farms have only been given minimal fines, if
that, she says. Since shrimp farming is so lucrative, the fines do
not stop the illegal cutting of the mangroves.
''Judges and all the other people related to the legal system
here have tons and tons of paper work on their desks and they are
not aware of the value of an mangrove ecosystem,'' Kakabadse told
IPS.
She is currently working on an environmental education
programme, funded by the Inter-American Development Bank, for
people working within the legal system on Ecuador's coast.
''While awareness about the importance of maintaining mangroves
is growing, judges need to understand why communities are filing
suits against illegal shrimp farmers and not put these cases at
the bottom of the pile,'' she says.
Kakabadse says that the government's job should not be to
police to coast, but to give local communities the power to
monitor the illegal growth of shrimp farms.
''The traditional pattern of state control is not a good
monitoring system because it lacks resources and the moment we
turn our back the illegal farms will continue,'' she says.
She sees a growing conservation awareness among the commercial
farmers who are beginning to value the mangrove ecosystem that
protects their farms as well in the form of water purification and
protection from storms and El Nino.
Kakabadse and the National Chamber of Aquaculture point to
examples of some shrimp farmers who have started mangrove
reforestation projects.
But Cecilia Cherrez, who coordinates the mangrove protection
campaign at Ecological Action, says these efforts are barely
noticeable in comparison to the destruction of the mangroves.
''Of the hundreds of hectares that have been reforested,
hundreds of thousands of hectares of mangroves have been cut,''
she says.
Cortez, who traveled from the small coastal town of Bolivar
near Muisne, has organised other women who harvest wildlife from
the mangroves and monitors the shrimp farms in the area.
''If the mangroves disappear,'' she warns, ''so will our
culture.'' (END/IPS/dk/mk/99) .
Origin: ROMAWAS/ENVIRONMENT-ECUADOR/
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