***ACTION ALERT!!!***

MAP collaborated with our Brazilian partner, Instituto Terramar, in the organization of a one-day workshop on 28 July to discuss the aquaculture certification process, bringing together representatives from various sectors and regions of Brazil in preparation of the FAO Workshop held in Fortaleza, Ceara State, from July 31-Aug. 3.

Below is the letter produced during the one-day workshop, which has already been signed by many international and Brazilian NGOs. This letter was presented to the plenary session of the FAO meeting in Fortaleza highlighting the issues surrounding shrimp aquaculture certification.

To add your name to the list of signatories, please send your name, organization, and city and/or country to mapamericas@mangroveactionproject.org, and it will be passed on to our Brazilian colleagues.

30 July 2007

In response to the Workshop on Aquaculture Certification organized by the Brazilian Government, FAO, and NACA to take place 31 July – 3 August 2007 in Fortaleza, Brazil, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community associations, fisherfolk associations, fisherfolk, shellfish collectors, pastoral groups, indigenous and African-descendent associations, and university researchers met on 29 July in Prainha do Canto Verde, Beberibe, in the state of Ceara, in order to discuss this process. The following considerations are fruit of the deliberations.

Shrimp farming activities in the South have, in recent history, provoked significant alterations in the functions and environmental services provided by mangrove ecosystems, which are of relevant importance for society. They are being established in wetlands and watersheds without taking into account cumulative impacts and the lack of restoration of degraded areas after the abandonment of the activity.

The shrimp farming industry has been established, in large part, in apicum (salt flats, salt pans, salinas, etc.), characterized as a fundamental component of the mangrove ecosystem:  areas of elevated biodiversity; essential for niche diversification; constituting expansion areas for mangrove forests; retainer of specific geo-environmental and eco-dynamic processes; and habitat for fish, migratory birds, crustaceans, and other vertebrates. The apicum is an integral part of the mangrove ecosystem; produces essential environmental resources for traditional communities; and makes available dietary, nutritional, and economic supplies necessary for the existence of fisherman, fisherwomen, shellfish collectors, and indigenous, slave-descendent, and rural peasant populations.

The negative impacts of shrimp farming extend to other spaces beyond where it has been established. Among these impacts are:  the profound loss of identity/character of place; the reduction of areas for the carrying out of extractivist activities; and the salinization of subterranean aquifers. This situation, as a whole, puts at risk the communities’ source of food security, as well as the sovereignty to exercise their traditional activities and decide on the use and management of their lands, promoting a situation of violence and denial of historic rights of these communities.

The certification process cannot legitimize socio-environmental damage deriving from a development model markedly unsustainable and exclusionary. The current criteria and procedures for shrimp farming do not confront the multiple and serious environmental and social impacts resulting from the force of the shrimp farming industry in countries of the South and in Brazil. On the contrary, they do not assure the rights of local populations affected by the aquaculture industry, and do not consider the participation of these populations in consensus building, constituting a process which is anti-democratic and of minimal transparency.

As such, in our perspective shrimp farming represents profound damage to society and the environment, and this proposal of certification is an attempt to legitimize an activity in watersheds and coastal ecosystems which is not viable.

Original letter in Portuguese.

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