WWF faces criticism over their shrimp farming policy -
"The conversion
of mangroves and coastal zones into ponds for shrimp cultivation... releases massive
quantities of
carbon, thus contributing to climate change."
Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director of Mangrove Action Project, recently denounced WWF's Shrimp Certification Standards at the Seafood Exposition in Brussels. He is supported by a great number of organizations arguing that WWF is greenwashing an environmentally damaging and corrupt industry which destroys one of our most important Blue Carbon ecosystems, namely the mangrove forests.
Alfredo Quarto, Executive Director of Mangrove Action Project, recently denounced WWF's Shrimp Certification Standards at the Seafood Exposition in Brussels. He is supported by a great number of organizations arguing that WWF is greenwashing an environmentally damaging and corrupt industry which destroys one of our most important Blue Carbon ecosystems, namely the mangrove forests.
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Thousands join industrial shrimp aquaculture
protest: WWF standards denounced as greenwash
29 April 2012/
by Alfredo Quarto (Mangrove Action Project)/ The Bahamas Weekly
Brussels - Hundreds of NGOs in Asia, Latin America,
Africa, North America and Europe are protesting against WWF and its lack of
concern for the environment and local peoples' livelihood in the interest of
industry profits from shrimp farming.
The conversion
of mangroves and coastal zones into ponds for shrimp cultivation for the export
industry has caused severe environmental destruction, depletion of coastal
biodiversity and wild fisheries as well as shoreline erosion. It increases
susceptibility to hurricanes and tsunamis and releases massive quantities of
carbon, thus contributing to climate change.
The large
scale use of fishmeal exacerbates all these problems. Coastal populations in
tropical countries are severely affected by the loss of livelihood, food
security and protection from storms. Protests are often met with human rights
abuses.
Alfredo
Quarto, Exec. Dir. for Mangrove Action Project Denouncing WWF's Shrimp
Certification Standards at Seafood Exposition in Brussels, 25 April 2012
The WWF
certification legitimises this situation by giving a “green stamp” to shrimp
cultivation. Their certification standards, recently finalized, will be handed
over to a certification company named the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC).The
standards have been developed by WWF and the aquaculture industry through a
process called the Shrimp Aquaculture Dialogue led by a General Steering
Committee (ShAD/GSC).
“The
destruction of mangroves and coastal zones and the many human rights violations
and food insecurity issues that the shrimp industry causes must not be condoned
or encouraged, which is exactly what these so-called ‘shrimp standards’ will
do,” says Khushi Kabir, Coordinator of Nijera Kori, a NGO working with around
650,000 people in several coastal districts of Bangladesh.
WWF has
spent four years and at least US$ two million to develop standards without
involving the stakeholders or resource users: i.e. neither the coastal
communities of the shrimp producing nations whose livelihoods depend upon a
functional coastal ecosystem, nor the NGOs that support them and the coastal
ecosystems on which they depend have been involved. The standards will
perpetuate an unsustainable and destructive system of aquaculture.
“WWF is
greewashing an environmentally damaging and corrupt industry through
certification of this luxury product,” says Luciana Queiroz of Redmanglar, a
network of 254 organizations in 10 Latin American countries.
NGOs and
networks in Asia, Latin America and Africa representing more then 300
organizations concerned with coastal environment and the livelihood of coastal
communities have signed a letter of protest to WWF. In addition, around 30 NGOs
in Europe and USA as well as many individuals have also signed the letter of protest
rejecting the standards (appended below). We call on WWF to practice its stated
Mission “to stop the degradation of the planet’s natural environment and to
build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature" by its Guiding
Principles of conservation and sustainable use of natural resources - and to
withdraw from certification of tropical shrimp aquaculture.
The Open
Letter will be handed over to WWF on April 25. Natasha Ahmad, Coordinator of
ASIA (Asia Solidarity Against Industrial Aquaculture), a network of 18
organisations in eight Asian countries emphasises that “the UN Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment concludes that there is a considerable net economic loss
by shrimp aquaculture in mangroves and wetlands”.
