EXECUTIVE DECREE 1391 FOR THE ‘LEGALISATION’ OF SHRIMP FARMING INDUSTRY:
Industrial shrimp farming is the principal cause of the
destruction of
mangrove ecosystem and the displacement, from their ancestral territories, of
thousands of families of small-scale fishermen and crustacean harvesters. The
government of
through an executive decree of October 2008 is ‘legalising’ this predatory
activity, threatening community and environmental rights.
mangroves‘ published on
(www.fis.com), which mentions that through the reforestation plan, the
Ecuadorian shrimp industry managed to recover 1,6% of the total area of the
existing mangroves in 1999. The following points should be noted:
shrimp farming sector, is illegal and unconstitutional. The 1391 Decree
regularises (i.e. grants concessions), shrimp farms constructed on areas of
mangrove previously deforested illegally by the industry, as mentioned in the
same decree. At the same time, the decree calls for a reforestation level of 10%
when the area of the aquaculture installation covers up to
from 11 to
and 30% from 51 to
But it should be noted that mangroves are protected in
by a legal framework – since 1960 by the Marine Policy Code and since August 1981
by the Forestry Law – and given a Decree can’t override a Law according to the
order of precedence of the national legal framework, 100% of the cleared areas
should for this reason be reforested, as stipulated by this law.
The 1391 Decree is a reward for the shrimp farming sector
and a backward step in the application of environmental and community rights. Official
comment has attributed benefits resulting from the supposed recovery of mangroves
that are still in actual fact occupied illegally by shrimp farms. Furthermore,
reforestation carried out by the sector (when it has taken place) hasn’t
achieved restoration of areas, such as shrimp ponds, that were previously
covered by mangrove, but has instead reforested areas which never have been,
and never will be, adequate for mangrove planting, such as flats fishing, salt
pans and beaches [1] or on sandbanks where forest could never regenerate. The
aquaculture industry has also attempted to claim as reforestation efforts areas
that were previously reforested either through local community initiatives or
by natural regeneration; the figure of 1.6% of mangroves recovered by the
aquaculture industry reported in the FIS article [2] is therefore patent
nonsense and untrue.
mangrove restoration with reference to a 1999 baseline (the reference year of
the FIS article), given that approximately 70% of
coastal mangrove ecosystem had already been destroyed by then, principally as
the result of the shrimp farming sector (the Ministerial Agreement 498 of the
Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock, published in the Official Register on 24
December 1986, and rectified by the Ministry through the Ministerial Agreement
ecosystem at that time).
In 2006 the Centre for Integrated Survey of Natural
Resources by Remote Sensing (CLIRSEN) reported the recovery of
through natural regeneration, through reforestation by mangrove community
organisations, and by the Coastal Resources Management Programme; the 2006 data
were presented again in 2012, the result of an ‘illegal’ process of
regularisation of industrial shrimp farming which started in 2008.
the ‘legalisation’ of the destruction of the mangrove ecosystem, complete information
is still lacking regarding the number of hectares of ponds that have been ‘legalised’
in practice, the area of mangrove forest reforested to comply with this ‘legalisation’
and their exact locations, and how much was paid to the state by companies to
obtain the concessions granted them by the Subsectretariat of Aquaculture.
The Decree stipulates the removal of shrimp ponds installed
in protected areas, however there is no information on how many ponds have been
removed. For example, the ponds belonging to the company “Purocongo” located in
the “Cayapas Mataje Mangrove Reserve” in the north of Esmeralda province should
have been removed, given they were constructed after thedeclaration of the
protected area; however they are still operating.
Deforestation greatly affects artisanal fishing communities
who have seen their fishing areas reduced, and in many areas it contributes to
increased sedimentation of estuaries, causing serious problems affecting both
the mangrove ecosystem and its human communities.
Furthermore, mangrove communities, which already suffer from
travel restrictions through areas that have traditionally offered them free passage,
have experienced an increase in violence. In the last 12 months two shellfish
harvesters have died in El Oro province, as well as a shrimp farm guard in
Manabí province, electrocuted on the walls of shrimp pools; it is not only
guards gunfire and dogs that threaten the lives of mangrove community families,
but also electrified fencing. For mangrove communities the right to work has
turned into a death penalty.
[1] Reflected in the reforestation of more than
Oro province, within the
and Sand Mangroves NaturalReserve.
Dolores