Mexico Threatened by Aquaculture Expansion

Mexico Threatened by Aquaculture Expansion
Greenpeace International

Ambitious Aquaculture Expansion Plans Threaten Mexico's Coastal Ecosystems and Commuters

Many of the coastal countries of Latin America have been bitten by the shrimp farming bug in recent times. Speculators, political leaders and bureaucrats have been jumping on the shrimp export bandwagon in pursuit of perceived benefits. But the lure of making big-money quickly from rising demand for shrimp in the U.S., Japan, and Europe, also poses great risk. Throughout Latin America and Asia, the rush to develop export-oriented shrimp aquaculture is proving to be unsustainable, as habitat destruction, pollution and invasive viral diseases cause the environment and shrimp farms themselves to collapse. The coastal ecology and the people who have traditionally relied for life and livelihood on a healthy and productive natural environment are the first victims.

While Ecuador, the world's second largest farmed shrimp producer, has been the big player in Latin America for three decades, Mexico is now eagerly eyeing the expanding U.S. market for farmed shrimp just across the border. But its ambitious plans to expand shrimp aquaculture dramatically over the next few years threaten to turn the country's lush tropical coastline into a monocultured, shrimp farming wasteland.

 

[Link potential to: Bosques Salades and Langostinos Tropical, also Devastating Delicacy, etc]

 

Back in 1994, when the World Bank announced a $600 million loan to Mexico to build shrimp farms, successful campaigning by Mexican environmental groups, including Greenpeace, forced it to reconsider. By 1996, the Bank had reduced its offer to just $40 million, with the Mexican government agreeing to put up an additional $18 million from the public purse. Consequently, today Mexico has only some 20,000 hectares of shrimp aquaculture estates -- 15,000 ha. along the Pacific coast and 5,000 on the Atlantic (a hectare = two and one-half acres).

But, the Mexican government has ambitious plans to pump US$57 million dollars into 200,000 hectares of coastal aquaculture production sites within the next five years. The Government plans to boost production in this sector fivefold within the next ten years. To do this the Mexican Government claims the country's coastlines provide suitable environments for aquaculture development in up to 345,000 hectares.

Greenpeace fears that more than 100,000 hectares of ecologically vital wetlands will disappear forever, mainly mangroves and lagoons that now shelter a wealth of biodiversity and are currently used by artisanal fishermen in coastal communities to provide food and incomes for their families.

The Pacific coast of Mexico is the most threatened at the moment. More than 15,000 hectares of shrimp aquaculture sites are currently in place and construction activity is rapidly increasing. There are plenty of domestic and foreign investors eager to take advantage of the fact that catches from wild shrimp fisheries are declining while the demand in the U.S. market for shrimp is increasing. They see the natural environmental conditions along Mexico's Pacific coast as well-suited for shrimp production. The government is also luring them with millions of dollars of subsidies from the public purse (free money!!). And, at this time at least, coastal wetlands are cheap to buy. But that won't last long as speculators are moving in to scoop up bargains and turn them into dollars.

On the Atlantic side is Mexico's richest shrimp fishing grounds, but the future of shrimp fishing here too is unsettled. Ciudad del Carmen has been the heart of the shrimp fishing scene for many years. Now, oil exploration and development in the Gulf of Mexico is competing with the fishermen for space and creating serious pollution problems. Consequently, local fishermen are beginning to reassess their future. The Government's promotion of aquaculture expansion along the Atlantic coast is very aggressive, targeting the artisanal fishermen to persuade them to accept aquaculture as their future. There are now about 5,000 hectares of shrimp aquaculture, mostly in Tamaulipas (close to Texas), in the Northeast of Mexico, but in the longer term the Atlantic coastline will be even more threatened that the Pacific There are even better natural conditions for shrimp aquaculture, and larger areas of wetlands in healthy condition than along the Pacific coast. In Campeche alone, there are more than 700,000 hectares of wetland ecosystems including mangroves, lagoons, swamps, and salt flats being sized up by Mexican Government officials, as well as local and foreign speculators.

Another matter of concern to Greenpeace is experimentation currently underway to introduce exotic species into Mexico's Atlantic coast shrimp farming. The species most widely used in shrimp aquaculture in Latin America is Penaeus vanamei, a species that is native to the Pacific coast. There are investigations currently underway in Mexican government and university research centers aiming to introduce P. vanamei to the Atlantic zone. The risk associated with such an undertaking include the likely prospect that these introduced animals will escape from shrimp farms into the wild. Liberation of this organisms to the environment of the Atlantic area could lead to potentially irreversible consequences for the natural ecosystems, including the possible elimination of the native wild shrimp species.

Greenpeace has been talking with local environmental organizations, fishermens' groups, and academics to identify the important concerns they have about aquaculture. Together with other concerned national and international groups, Greenpeace is working to inform the people of their options for action in areas that might be badly affected by the Government's ambitious aquaculture expansion scheme.

Many of the fishermens' groups say they want to see sustainable aquaculture projects introduced, not the get-rich-quick, destructive type of shrimp farming that has dominated the past three decades and devastated much of the coastal wetlands of many shrimp producing countries elsewhere in Latin America, and in many Asian countries. Greenpeace agrees with the vision of sustainable aquaculture designed to meet the food and livelihood needs of local communities, without harming the environment. The problem is that when big money and greed kick in, as has happened time and again elsewhere, irrational elements take over and expansion becomes uncontrollable. Governments typically turn a blind eye, often because of curruption. It is then that destructive side of aquaculture begins to take its toll on the environment and dependent coastal communities. The grab for cheap land intensifies, beginning with the destruction of the wetlands and mangroves. Since big industry can best afford the high costs of maintaining high levels of industrial-scale production, it soon dominates, with its expectations for large-scale financial gains. Small-scale producers are quickly bought out when they cannot compete. Always seeking to minimize costs, operators of industrialized shrimp operations skimp on such important things as waste discharge and pollution control, so the risk of contamination of local lands, groundwater and waterways increases. The big operators have the money to experiment with such things as the introduction of exotic, potentially invasive species.

It is during this mad rush to expand shrimp aquaculture that the prospects and hopes for sustainable types of aquaculture are dashed. The potential for sustainable aquaculture production by local, community-based producers, providing food and incomes for local people, is lost, as habitats vital to biodiversity maintenance disappear and pollution from the shrimp farms turns the environment into a toxic waste dump. As the ecosystem and its biodiversity decline, along with them go the lives and culture of the people who have traditionally depended on the coastal wetlands and their natural resources for survival.