index

LATIN AMERICA (cont)

Guatemala

Shrimp-farm generates violence and death

Fisherfolk from the Pacific Ocean port of Champerico are currently fighting for their livelihoods against the shrimp farming firm Camarones S.A. (Camarsa) and its subsidiary Pesca S.A.

Although Camarsa has been operating in the area since 1959, it was only in 1995 - with the arrival of the new owner Domingo Moreira - that the conflicts arose, including the closure of access to the wetlands used by the local fisherfolk - with a fence -, thus preventing them access to their traditional fishing grounds.

The situation eventually led to a meeting with Comarsa representatives at the beginning of May this year, where the local people requested the firm to remove the fence. No agreement was reached and as a result, some five hundred fisherfolk immediately decided to break the fence at three different places. Three fishermen were arrested by the police and the rest took a company representative hostage offering to exchange him for the release of the three arrested.

After a long negotiation, the authorities agreed to release those arrested and the company representative was set free by the local people. But almost immediately the company's security guards and the police charged against the demonstrators and killed 14-year-old Moytin Castellanos. Four other fishermen were also wounded by firearms.

This is not the first time that local fisherfolk are wounded by firearms. Local Champerico firemen have reported that during the past four years they have treated at least five cases of fishermen wounded by the company's security guards. They also report of many cases of people injured by "mezquite", a thorny plant used by the company to prevent access to the wetlands and shrimp ponds.

According to statements made to the local press by the affected people, the company pays miserable salaries and has appropriated a space which it does not own. Additionally, it has closed the access to public wetlands, which they use to feed their families. The local NGO Trópico Verde has found evidence that the company is operating illegally, because of not having complied with the legal requirement of carrying out environmental impact studies. Additionally, the company has for years been clear-cutting mangrove areas, which is prohibited by the 1996 Forestry Law.

After the serious confrontation that resulted in the death of Moytin Castellanos, the Champerico Human Rights Attorney established a negotiating committee integrated by the Governor of the Province of Champerico, the commanding officer of the Air Force, the Human Rights Attorney, six representatives and a lawyer for the shrimp farming company and thirty two fisherfolk representatives as well as Trópico Verde.

The negotiating process within the above commission broke off on May 21, when the Camarsa delegates demanded that the fisherfolk should prove the damages caused to the wetlands by its activities. On the following day, hundreds of fish appeared dead in one of the wetlands used by Camarsa. The fisherfolk fear that the company may have poisoned the water with some chemical and they sent samples of water and fish to several laboratories.

Camarsa is currently spending large amounts of money in the press accusing the fisherfolk for breaking off the negotiations, while at the same time disseminating a video on the Champerico confrontations where the fisherfolk are portrayed as criminals.

The situation is now very tense in Champerico. New demonstrations are being organized by the fisherfolk and local people fear the police may again violently repress the demonstrators. (WRM Bulletin Nº 46, May 2001).

Security for shrimps, insecurity for the local population

The Champerico community has been denouncing - since the beginning of May -, contamination of wetlands, the logging of mangroves (activity prohibited by the Environmental Law), closing of access to public wetlands, acts of repression against fishermen (about 70% of the local population's diet is fish) and death of fish caused by the operations of Camarones del Sur, S.A. (Camarsa).

The indifference of the Guatemalan authorities towards serious infringement of the law by Camarsa, has triggered off various demonstrations, resulting in the death of a young man, Moytin Castellanos, in addition to various other people being injured.

Since the establishment of the Commission for resolution of conflicts, comprising senior government officials, the community has been demanding that Camarsa immediately cease its operations due to the serious irregularities involved in its operation.

This Commission met with representatives of the community without reaching any concrete result. Progress has been almost non-existent and the shrimp company continues operating, in spite of the commitment taken on by the Commission to immediately investigate complaints made by the local inhabitants. The frustration of the people of Champerico, who demand concrete response to the impunity with which Camarsa is operating, has not been long in making itself felt.

The population recently held another demonstration outside the shrimp factory installations, preventing people from entering into the factory. The demonstration ended with serious confrontations, during which Fernando Chiyoc died and seven people received bullet wounds from the security guards and other Camarsa employees. So far, the US citizen, Mike Corser, an engineer at Camarsa has been arrested, together with nine of the company's security guards, accused of homicide and attempted homicide.

However, the population fears that this may be yet another case of impunity. The facts are very serious and so far, no convincing response has been given by any responsible authority.

As if this were not enough, Camarsa delegates have interrupted negotiations, demanding that the local population submit evidence of the impact caused by the company's activities. However, the local NGO, Trópico Verde, states that "according to Guatemalan environmental laws (Legislative Decree 68-86, Law for the Protection and Enhancement of the Environment and Forestry Law, Decree 70-89, Regulation, Government Agreement 961-90) shrimp farming activities have the obligation to study the impact they will cause, provide measures to mitigate this impact and implement them. In other words, Guatemalan laws presume that an activity of this nature may cause damage to the environment, and therefore Camarsa is not justified in requesting third parties to show evidence of the contamination it produces.

In spite of this, Trópico Verde, together with the artisan fishermen from Champerico have carried out research, showing that there is contamination of wetlands and a serious lack of compliance with the environmental laws of the country. A full report on the issue - "The impact of shrimp farming activities in Champerico, Retalhuleu, Guatemala" - is available in Spanish on our web page.

So far, the government has tried to pull a curtain of smoke over the problem instead of solving it. Company interests are at stake here, and pressure is evident. In the meanwhile, contamination by the shrimp company and violation of Guatemalan laws continue and the two thousand families affected in Champerico are going through hard times, caused by the impunity with which Camarsa acts. (WRM Bulletin Nº 48, July 2001).

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Honduras

Action to protect mangrove forests and wetlands against shrimp farming

Honduras has the obligation both under international and national law to protect 75,000 hectares of wetlands in the Gulf of Fonseca. On May 1999, The Honduran Government, through the Natural Resources and Environment Secretariat (SERNA), during the RAMSAR Convention on Wetlands, obtained the designation of the Coastal Wetlands of the Gulf of Fonseca as "RAMSAR Site 1000".

Despite this, Honduras is not fulfilling its obligation to protect the "RAMSAR 1000 Site". Thus, CODDEFFAGOLF (a grassroots organization in Honduras) and ISA Net are strongly urging the Honduran government to fulfill its obligations both under international and national laws. Exact hectares of the damage is difficult to calculate because the areas are guarded by goons with AK47.

Thus far, shrimp farming projects and the cutting of mangroves have been allowed inside the Ramsar Convention protected areas. This has resulted in the drying up of some of these otherwise protected wetlands of the Gulf of Fonseca. In "La Aguadera", Punta Ratón, where the project "Habitat and Species Management Area in San Lorenzo" is located, a shrimp farming project was completed occupying several hectares of beautiful mangroves. Trees have been felled in "El Gorrión" (The Sparrow), the location for the project "Las Iguanas y Punta de Condega Habitat and Species Management Area". In the "La Berberia Habitat and Species Management Area", several mangrove areas and swamps like "Los Comejenes" have been destroyed to construct shrimp ponds. The constant use of the highway along the lagoon of La Berberia along the Nicaraguan border has greatly damaged the coastal ecosystem.

On March 2000, men felling trees using tractors in the zone of "El Carey" threatened a CODDEFFAGOLF member and expelled two government officials from the Environment Attorney's Office who tried to stop them. The government officials returned five days later with a group of policemen, found men operating four tractors, succeeded in stopping them momentarily, but later found them again felling trees and now using six tractors. The loggers boasted that nobody could stop them because they were "well protected".

In view of such situation, CODDEFFAGOLF and ISA Net urged all those interested in the conservation of these wetlands to participate in a letter-writing campaign. (WRM Bulletin Nº 33, April 2000).

Struggle against shrimp farming gaining ground

After nine months of denouncing the destruction of wetlands at "El Carey", Marcovia, Choluteca; after several months after members of CODDEFFAGOLF (a local environmental organization) and the Environment Attorney were driven out with threats from that site; after several months of requesting international solidarity for this case; two months after the visit of a RAMSAR representative, and a few days after announcing the mobilization of fishermen and farmers to Choluteca, near the coast of the Gulf of Fonseca, CODDEFFAGOLF launched a Peoples' Peaceful Demostration, which has already achieved the following results:

- On November 29, one of the owners of a shrimp farm at "El Carey" was arrested and she is now facing charges at a Choluteca court. At the same time, there are rumours that her husband took refuge in a hospital alleging to be seriously ill.

- Parliamentarian Victor Argeñal, who has fenced several mangrove areas for converting them into shrimp farms in Guapinol, Choluteca, expressed an interest to discuss the matter with CODDEFFAGOLF. The response was that he should discuss the issue with the commission for mangrove conservation established three years ago.

- The shrimp farm company "Granjas Marinas San Bernardo" through its Manager Mr. Hector Corrales, has called the executives of CODDEFFAGOLF trying to intimidate them and expressing that CODDEFFAGOLF's allegations are lies.

- There are also unofficial reports that the Undersecretary for the Environment has denied the Environmental License to "Granjas Marinas San Bernardo" and to "Hondufarms", while the Minister of Environment, Xiomara Gómez, has expressed to CODDEFFAGOLF her interest in discussing this issue with executives of those companies and with CODDEFFAGOLF.

- The staff of "Granjas Marinas" has contacted fishermen in order to convince them about the "pressing need" of supporting this powerful company - that has polluted the area with tons of organic wastes coming directly from the more than three thousand hectares of ponds that are currently in operation - while at the same time they are constantly intimidating those fisherfolk which operate in the mangroves bordering its concession.

Although shrimp farming is still a big problem, things appear to be improving, at least regarding the stricter control that society and to a lesser extent government are imposing on this industry, which has already destroyed large areas of mangrove forests in Honduras and throughout the tropics. (WRM Bulletin Nº 41, December 2000).

World Bank involvement in mangrove destruction

Industrial shrimp farming is a main cause for the loss of mangroves in the tropics. Even though private companies are the direct agents of such destruction it is important to highlight that governments and multilateral development agencies play a very active role in paving the way for this to happen.

The expansion of the "San Bernardo Marine Farms" (SBMF) shrimp company in the Gulf of Fonseca in Honduras is provoking grave concern. In June 1999 the International Finance Corporation (IFC) - private sector branch of the World Bank - granted a US$ 6 million dollar loan to SBMF, where US investors hold majority shares. The justification for the loan was apparently to "reactivate the shrimp production and recover from the damages caused by Hurricane Mitch". Such arguments do not seem to be very solid. On the one hand, it makes little sense with regard to the prevention against natural catastrophes - such as hurricanes - to support an activity that implies the destruction of mangroves which, among other valuable functions, act as a natural barrier for the protection of the coastline. On the other hand, the infrastructures of the company had not been severely affected by this climatic phenomenon and thus the new funds are being used by the company to expand its operations, causing further negative environmental impacts on neighbouring wetlands and on the livelihoods of local fishing communities.

As a result of the struggle of local fisherfolk and supporting organizations to protect the local ecosystems and to stop shrimp farming development, the area was declared a RAMSAR site at the end of 1999. However, neither that nor the World Bank's own environmental guidelines were taken into account by the IFC. As a result, the IFC itself now shares responsibility for the social conflict and environmental destruction that are resulting from the investment. Recently members of the local community who implemented an action to cut the access roads to the SBMF shrimp farm were subject to a savage repression by the national police. Additionally, the Environmental Impact Assessment carried out to obtain the environmental license to expand shrimp farming operations is under severe questioning.

The World Bank Group - to which the IFC belongs - has a number of guidelines regarding environmental protection. In spite of that, the IFC appears to chose to ignore them when providing funds to this investment. Will the World Bank do something to make the IFC comply with its own rules? (WRM Bulletin Nº 45, April 2001).

Shrimp farming destruction

The waters of the Pacific Ocean penetrate the territory of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador through a 35 km entry, forming a water mass of 3,200 kms2 known as the Gulf of Fonseca, with a 261 km coastline.

Different types of wetlands are to be found along the coast, such as mangroves, periodically irrigated by the tides. A forest inventory made in 1987, showed that in the Honduran sector of the Gulf, there were 47,000 hectares of mangroves that year.

At the beginning of 1973, the shrimp industry was launched in the Gulf wetlands, within a system of semi-intensive cultivation, with a density of between 10 and 30 post-larvae per square metre, including fertilisation in laboratories and harvesting in ponds.

This "closed cycle" reproduction system did not last many years. It was substituted by the capture of wild shrimp post-larvae in the wetlands and marshes. In 1995, 3,000 people, mainly children were involved in collecting post-larvae for shrimp farms. However the supply was not enough to cover the increasing demand for post-larvae and nurseries were established to satisfy it.

It was thus that shrimp farming started, a private undertaking that had the financial support of the International Development Agency (USAID), the World Bank and the Government of Honduras. The shrimp boom had started.

Between 1973 and 1989, the industry grew very quickly. However, in 1989, only 5 million pounds of shrimps were exported, instead of the 9 million pounds expected, coinciding with the appearance of the "Seagull Syndrome" which struck down the shrimps. Between 1990 and 1995, industrial exploitation rose to 12,000 hectares, but exports descended - from 20 million pounds in 1993 to 15 million in 1995 - attributed to the "Taura virus." In 1998, expansion reached 16,000 hectares but exports continued at 15 million pounds.

In 1999, the "White Spot virus," coming from Asia appeared in the Gulf, causing havoc to shrimp production. Between 1999 and 2000, thousands of hectares of shrimp farms were abandoned, various shrimp packing plants closed down and unemployment was rampant. Nearly all the small fish farms closed down their operations and were on the verge of loosing their goods due to their debts with the banks. However the large shrimp companies saved their situation thanks to multimillion dollar loans from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, among others.

The diseases imported by aquaculture not only had an impact on industrial shrimp breeding, but have also severely affected biological diversity and marine fisheries. Additionally, the loss of habitats for native and migratory bird species has been significant and has also harmed other species of fauna.

The catches of shrimp post-larvae to satisfy the billionaire requirements of fattening-up farms together with other species of by-catch, killed following selection by means of chemical products that do not harm shrimps but kill the other species (9 by-catch for each shrimp post-larva caught) also has serious impacts. Industrial demand may well be above 4 billion post-larvae, therefore the number of other species killed could be over 36 billion!

Additionally, the waste from the packing plants is dumped directly into the marshes where the accelerated fermentation processes cause the death of stocks of numerous species. Other wastes are dumped directly on the borders of highways or in fields, causing air contamination.

In various sites, the installation of shrimp farms has implied the prohibition to enter mangroves, lagoons, estuaries and the Gulf. For the local populations, this implies a loss of access to their traditional sources of food, firewood and income, obliging them to "illegally" enter such areas, evading controls established by the companies. The result has been that between October 1992 and May 1998, nine fishers were found shot dead in the mangroves and estuaries near the shrimp farms. Their death has been related to shrimp farm surveillance.

In spite of public demonstrations in protest, of numerous complaints to the respective authorities and to the national press, these murders have never even been investigated and have remained unpunished.

The question generated among the fishers is "we have been evicted from the mountains, we have been evicted from the valleys, and now, if we are evicted from the coasts and the sea, where will we go? (WRM Bulletin Nº 51, October 2001).

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Mexico

Mangroves vs. Shrimp farming and golf courses

The municipality of San Blas, (Nayarit, Mexico) is witnessing with great concern how the overdevelopment that has taken place in nearby Puerto Vallarta has attracted the attention of big investing consortia and spurred the ambitions of politicians and senior government officials from this country, resulting in a hoarding of lands, federal zones and mangroves for the purpose of commercial development.

At this moment, various shrimp farming projects of several thousand hectares are already under way. In particular a project of the "Granjas Aquanova, S.A. de C.V." company, which has already had a devastating impact on the ecosystem of this region, contaminating the estuaries with the residual waters and deforesting vast areas of mangroves. They have another project, with support from State and Federal governments, that will destroy several thousand hectares more.

In the field of tourism there are also negotiations for two mega-projects that would use more than 3500 hectares of Federal Zones and mangroves for the construction of 6 golf courses, more than 10 luxury hotels, marinas, etc. All of this is to take place with the consent of the local authorities who are now using repression to silence demands from local organizations. They argue that these demands are politically motivated. In the last two years or so, local NGOs have done their best to delay in all possible ways, the progress of these projects.

Some thirty years ago there were thousands of sea turtles coming to lay eggs on these shores every year. Now they are gone forever! The same thing will happen with all the migrating birds if the mangroves are turned into shrimp farming ponds and golf courses.

In such context, the local NGO "Grupo Ecológico Manglar" from San Blas, Nayarit, Mexico, seek support from the NGO community:

"We are too well aware of the enormous demands made upon your time and help from all parts of the world. But having resorted with little success to denunciation and lawsuits at the government level, we feel that we have no alternative and realize that the vested interests and corruption we are faced with are of international proportions. We feel that we have no alternative left but to turn for help to international ecological groups committed to the defense of the planet's health and ask them to intervene on our behalf, given the importance of these wetlands in the food chain and the future of life on earth." (WRM Bulletin Nº 11, April 1998).

Mangrove destruction by tourism and shrimp farming

The expansion of tourism has meant the increase of the possibility of enjoying leisure time for many people worldwide. Nevertheless, tourism usually brings negative social and environmental consequences with it and more so in the case of the fragile mangrove ecosystems.

The mangroves and beaches off the Caribbean Coast of Mexico, known as the Maya Riviera, are being destroyed by more and more infrastructure for tourism built at a quick pace. Some people consider that this may benefit - at least temporally - the local economy as this creates jobs and stimulates cash flow, but the long range results are devastating. In one weekend, working night and day, an entire building site can take over a healthy thriving mangrove. This aquatic forest ecosystem, vital to the life of the coast, reef, and food chain to so many mammals, is being sacrified for the benefit of investors in hotels, malls, golf courses, convention halls, and shopping centres that are being erected at the cost of one of the world's precious natural resources. Even if these developments were to be placed on the hard land, behind the mangrove wetlands, negative effects can be expected, due to the runoff downstream of chemical and pesticide effluents.

The NGO People of the Mayan Cancun Corridor, with the support of Mangrove Action Project, are leading a campaign to halt the project to build a big hotel that will affect the Quintana Roo's mangroves in the Caribbean Coast.

Mangroves at the Pacific coast are also menaced. The situation in San Blas Nayarit in the area of Marismas Nacionales (National Swamps) is continuing to be critical, partly as a consequence of the indifference shown by the authorities. The international agreements for the protection of this fragile area are not enforced. The Grupo Ecológico Manglar has denounced that in this case the direct responsible for destruction is the shrimp farming company Aquanova Farms. Only once - in October 1998 - the authorities gave a response to the many complaints expressed by the environmentalists, and it consisted of a justification of the firm's activities, since it stated that the official investigation found insufficient proof that violations occurred, and for that reason the case was closed. Additionally the case was submitted to the Commission of Environmental Cooperation Canada-USA-Mexico, that committed itself to study it. Meanwhile a large area of mangroves is being lost every day because of the drying of waterways and lagoons caused by the expansion of Aquanova's shrimp cultivation ponds. (WRM Bulletin Nº 22, April 1999).

Growing opposition to industrial shrimp farming

Shrimp, considered as the country's pink gold, became the focus of Mexico's export-oriented fishing activity because of the importance and economic value of the crustacean in the international - particularly US - market. Five Mexican states along the Pacific coast (Sonora, Sinaloa, Nayarit, Oaxaca, and Chiapas) and two along the East coast (Tamaulipas and Campeche) have developed shrimp aquaculture.

Sinaloa is currently the state with the largest number of shrimp farms and the highest production levels of cultivated shrimp and where environmental problems associated with the industry's development are most prominent. The rapid proliferation in the number of shrimp farms is affecting the coastal ecosystems and the rural communities that depend on the resources provided by these ecosystems.

Despite existing regulations, there is a consensus that the aquaculture industry is transforming the coastal ecosystems of Sinaloa in a way that is affecting the livelihood and quality of life for residents of the many rural coastal communities.

The coastal lagoons and estuaries that characterize Sinaloa contain a diversity of habitats including mangrove forests, salt-marshes, inter-tidal pools, swamps, freshwater inner lagoons, and brackish and seawater systems. A key environmental concern is the impact of shrimp farm construction on ecosystems. This issue is most prominent in the southern region of the state, where a single lagoon system can contain many shrimp farms. During the rainy season, the region's lagoons are habitats and nurseries for postlarvae and a variety of fishery resources, which form the basis of the commercial fishing activity and are also exploited by the rural coastal communities as common property. When these lagoons dry up with the end of the rains, they have traditionally been mined for salt both by individuals gathering it for home consumption as well as by some cooperatives.

In order to guarantee a permanent water supply to the shrimp farms, canals have been built to connect the lagoons with estuaries or the ocean, leading to permanent flooding. The government has granted concessions, mostly to private investors, to build shrimp farms in these coastal lagoons. Moreover, the concessions have converted a highly diverse coastal ecosystem into a monocrop system. This has resulted in a greater marginalization and displacement of the social sector and in an increased distrust of the government agencies in charge of developing the aquaculture industry. By transforming common-property lagoons into a privately owned resource, the concessions have exacerbated Sinaloa's social conflicts.

The discharge from shrimp ponds is considered to be one of the more recent and serious direct sources of pollution in Sinaloa's coastal waters. Shrimp-farm wastewater contains large amounts of organic material, fertilizers, chemicals, and antibiotics, which cause eutrophication in the lagoons and estuarine systems. In Sinaloa, wastewater from shrimp aquaculture activities has been linked to the formation of phytoplankton blooms, eutrophication, and the development of red tides in coastal marine waters

An additional environmental concern is the impact of the industry on mangrove ecosystems. In Mexico, there are approximately 123 coastal lagoons, most bordered by mangrove swamps. Mexico is home to four mangrove species: red (Rhizophora mangle), white (Laguncunaria racemosa), black (Avicennia germinans), and buttonwood (Conocarpus erecta). Mexico's mangrove forests cover approximately 660,000 hectares. Sinaloa's mangrove forests serve as nesting and feeding grounds for a large number of resident and migratory birds and as nurseries for shrimp, which form the basis of the inshore fishing industry. The trees are also used by the rural population as firewood and lumber. Over time, mangrove ecosystems in Sinaloa have been transformed by mining, agriculture, and the cattle industry. Currently, the shrimp aquaculture industry is also contributing to the ecological transformation of these ecosystems. It has been estimated that by 1994, 10,000 hectares of mangrove forests were destroyed to build shrimp ponds. Untreated shrimp-pond effluents are also contributing to the damage.

The global concern over the negative impact of commercial shrimp farming on the environment and humans has fueled the emergence of various grassroots social movements to resist the expansion of the industry. Among the causes igniting this resistance are local people's concerns with increasing pollution, and the loss of common-pool resources. In Mexico, resistance to the industry's expansion is slowly starting to appear and for the most part, this opposition has been developed by several of the fishing cooperatives in southern Sinaloa and northern Nayarit. Activities of fishing cooperatives in these states have included confrontations with personnel of shrimp farms and negotiations with government agencies in order to limit the expansion of the industry.

Among the most important grassroots organizations to oppose large-scale shrimp aquaculture near fishing grounds is the Federation of Fishing Cooperatives of Southern Sinaloa (The "Guerreros del Sur", Warriors of the South), which comprises 21 fishing cooperatives with a total of 2,000 fishermen. In 1998, the Guerreros del Sur openly opposed the construction of a shrimp farm in their granted fishing area, claiming that seven cooperatives would no longer be able to fish in the area because the shrimp farm would invade their space. The Federation had previously prevented the construction of a shrimp farm in another nearby community. In that case, the majority of the members of this community supported the effort, and the shrimp farm was not constructed. Members of this Federation have also actively opposed the collection of wild shrimp larvae in coastal areas near their fishing grounds. In some instances, they showed up with truncheons to confront marine biologists and other shrimp farms personnel to demand they stop harvesting shrimp larvae. A number of fishing cooperatives in northern Nayarit have also opposed the construction of a shrimp farm near their fishing areas. In this case the fishermen have accused a private company of destroying large tracts of mangroves with their shrimp-pond operations. The fishing cooperatives were joined by an environmental organization, Grupo Manglar.

As more people become aware of the potential effects of the shrimp aquaculture industry, the fishing cooperatives and community groups opposing the expansion of the industry will get more support. There is no doubt that industrial aquaculture farming has had important ecological and social impacts, which in the long run may lead to the further erosion of the coastal and marine ecology and the ability of rural households to make a living. (WRM Bulletin Nº 51, October 2001).

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