Community impacts

Traditional communities have depended on the mangrove forests for subsistence. Women gather shellfish, mussels, crabs and other species to feed their families and to sell in local markets. However, due to the rapid and destructive growth of the shrimp industry, the traditional fishing grounds for local communities have disappeared.

In Asia and Latin America, there has been a groundswell of social discontent about the insurgence of shrimp farms. There have been violent confrontations, instances of harassment and even murder of local people who have attempted to defend their lives and livelihoods against the encroachment of shrimp farms.

Sometimes fierce competition erupts between peasant farmers and entrepreneurial shrimp farmers for quality land and coastal access. Traditional fishers are hard hit by the arrival of shrimp farms. Alternatives for employment and food are few and far between.

"I say to those who eat shrimp - and only the rich people from industrialised countries eat shrimp - I say that they are eating at the same time the blood, sweat and livelihood of the poor people of the Third World," said India's Shri Banke Behary Das, member of the People's Alliance Against the Shrimp Industry.

The horrific effects of recent hurricanes and tsunamis also indicate that damaging natural environments can leave humans more vulnerable to natural disasters. For example,  after the Indian Ocean tsunami in December 2004, damage appeared to be much worse in areas where these natural defences were destroyed or degraded by shrimp farming and irresponsible coastal development for industry and tourism.