Is your all-you-can-eat shrimp killing the mangroves?
BY TWILIGHT GREENAWAY
For his new book Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea, Kennedy Warne traveled the world -- from Bangladesh to Brazil to the Gulf Coast -- documenting the complex relationship between the growing shrimp farming industry and the world's mangroves. (Up to 70 percent of the these aquatic forests have disappeared in the last 40 years.) The former editor of New Zealand Geographic spoke to Grist recently about what he found.
Q. Can you start by describing the relationship between mangroves and shrimp?
A. Mangrove forests are nurseries for a vast array of marine species, including many species of shrimp. However, this nurturing relationship between a protective habitat and vulnerable sea creatures has been sundered in the past half century as mangroves around the world have been destroyed to create ponds for aquaculture. And guess what's being grown in those ponds? Shrimp. Think about it: The natural nurseries for wild shrimp have been eliminated to create space for the production of farmed shrimp. A bitter irony, is it not?
Q. Outside of the Deep South, mangroves are not so common in the U.S. Can you give our audience a primer on these "rainforests of the sea?"
A. I call mangroves "ecological Swiss army knives" because they have so many ecosystem benefits. I already touched on one: nurseries for marine life. In Florida alone, more than half the species of commercially caught seafood start their lives in mangrove forests, amongst their labyrinths of interweaving trunks and roots that enable them to hide from predators. That same labyrinth acts as a natural buffer against storm surges, making mangroves the coastal shields of tropical coastlines.
more
http://www.grist.org/food/2012-01-03-is-your-all-you-can-eat-shrimp-killing-the-mangroves
