Social Impacts - Brazil

The expansion of shrimp farming and the associated loss of mangrove and coastal ecosystems also threatens the food security and culture of millions of people whose livelihoods depend on them. The socio-economic impacts of mangrove destruction are enormous and shrimp farming activity is a major blow to the already declining fisheries. Mangrove ecosystems and habitats present a large variety of flora and fauna that sustain a multitude of economic activities, including fishing and collection of crabs and shellfish species. For example 80% of commercially important, wild native shrimp species have links with mangroves at some stage in their development. Red spiny lobsters, of great industrial fisheries importance, rely on healthy mangroves to sustain healthy populations. Other species dependent on the mangrove ecosystem, such as the mangrove crab, the mangrove mussel and the mangrove oyster, provide an important source of nutrition and income for populations living along the coast.

Urban-industrial activity, tourism and industrial fishing can all contribute to coastal degradation, with negative consequences for artisanal fishing communities. But in the northeast, fast growing shrimp aquaculture activities have joined these other offenders in destroying the foundations of artisanal fishing and coastal livelihoods by damaging natural ecosystems which sustain the fisheries resources. Not only do shrimp farm operations physically usurp fisher communities from swathes of communal lands but they also inhibit access through fencing off their ponds and threatening those that attempt to reach fishing grounds on the other side.

Artisanal fishing is a hugely important sector of Brazilian fisheries, being responsible, on average, for more than 50% of fish production by value and, in the case of the north and northeast, it exceeds industrial fish production. Also in this region, women have traditionally participated in fishing as "marisqueiras" (shellfish collectors), "pescadeiras" fishing in the seashores and in the processing of fish. Whilst the latter is transferable to employment in shrimp farming activities, the former two are negatively affected by shrimp farm "privatisation" and access restrictions. In Bahia, the "marisqueiras" around 20,000 in number, participate actively in the earning of the household income. With 49% of the population in the northeast classified as poor, industrial shrimp farming's contribution to loss of subsistence livelihoods makes a mockery of the ideal of aquaculture reducing hunger and benefiting the poor.