Getting the shrimp’s share. Mangrove deforestation and shrimp consumption, assessment and alternatives Authors : Nandini Agarwal, Chiara Bonino, Ana Deligny, Luisa El Berr, Charlotte Festa, Manon Ghislain, Katarina Homolova, Ana Kuhn Velasquez, Ilyia Kurtev, Alexandra Oliveira Pinto, Vincent Virat, Julia Serban-Penhoat and Marie Thomas Students at Sciences Po – Paris School of International Affairs – Biodiversity Values and Policies Editors: Yann Laurans and Aleksandar Rankovic (IDDRI and Sciences Po) 15 January 2019 Foreword Due to their ecological richness, tropical forests harbour a large share of the world’s biodiversity. Deforestation of mangroves is occurring at an This partially explains why these forests are high on alarming pace of approximately 150,000 ha per the environmental agenda. year. This figure is, in absolute terms, rather modest in comparison with inland deforestation (e.g. the Since approximately the mid-2000’s, food Amazon, the Congo basin and the production, and subsequently food Indonesian/Malaysian inland forests), where annual consumption, have increasingly been deforestation affects approximately 20 M ha per designated as the main culprits for year. deforestation in the tropics. This overshadows the fact that mangroves are Due to the globalisation of food value chains, linear forests. Their ecological, social and consumers’ diets are seen as the primary drivers of economic importance is less proportional to their deforestation. Annual losses of millions of forest surface than to their length (see figure 1 below). hectares globally are now precisely monitored and More than 35 % of mangroves have disappeared denounced, and a handful of typical “deforestation during the last two decades, and more than 70 % in commodities” are singled out for their role in this some regions. Mangrove deforestation happens at process: (beef) meat, soy (principally used to feed an even more rapid pace than continental livestock, including poultry and pork), maize, palm deforestation; however, it is much yet less targeted oil, coffee and cocoa indeed bear the largest by campaigns and policy responses. Mangroves are responsibility in tropical deforestation. of crucial importance for many ecological, social and economic reasons, from their uniqueness to This has led to mounting attention from their role in protecting coastal areas from storm environmental NGOs, and from environmentally surge. sensitive consumers. Spurred by NGOs and by research displaying how globalised value chains Aquaculture, and, singularly, shrimp farming, “trade deforestation”, and aware of a growing bears the largest responsibility in the mangrove demand for more sustainable food products, agri- deforestation process by far. food businesses and public policy-makers have made commitments and undertaken actions to It was therefore a perfect subject for the Biodiversity reduce “embedded deforestation” in importation Values and Policies class at Sciences Po, third- policies (including, notably, the Amsterdam ranked university for policy studies worldwide, Declaration “Towards Eliminating Deforestation within the Environmental Policy master of the Paris from Agricultural Commodity Chains with European School of International Affairs (PSIA) 3, where we Countries”1, France’s National Strategy to Combat teach. A group of 13 of its 2017-2018 students have Imported Deforestation 2 , and a European written their final essays on this subject. Commission strategy in preparation…). This is a collection of these essays, altogether This mobilisation, however, tends to neglect a forming a comprehensive report aiming to present dramatic deforestation process: that of evidence on mangrove depletion, the role and mangroves, i.e. forests which grow alongside responsibility of shrimp farming and shrimp tropical coasts. consumption with regards to this issue, and the potential offered by policy instruments as well as alternative consumption patterns. We chose to — 1https://www.euandgvc.nl/documents/publications/2 2https://www.gouvernement.fr/en/ending- 015/december/7/declarations deforestation-caused-by-importing-unsustainable- products 3 http://www.sciencespo.fr/psia/ SCIENCES PO – PARIS SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS – IDDRI GETTING THE SHRIMP’S SHARE : MANGROVES DEPLETION AND SHRIMP CONSUMPTION. Page 2 display these essays in their original form, with their ecosystems programme 5 devotes attention to the imperfections, notably with respect to English, most governance of agri-food commodities global value of the students (and ourselves…) being non-native chains, and their relation with biodiversity depletion. English speakers, and we intend to do so each year from now on, on a subject related to global value With this report, we hope to shed light on these yet chains and biodiversity. The role of global value overshadowed issues, and to bring shrimp chains in the collapse of biodiversity worldwide is consumption and mangroves onto the “embedded indeed a major subject for IDDRI, the French think deforestation” agenda, and more generally to the tank devoted to better environmental policies, and a biodiversity protection agenda. partner of Sciences Po4. IDDRI’s biodiversity and Yann Laurans and Aleksandar Rankovic, 15 January 2019 Figure 1. Source: Giri C, Ochieng E, Tieszen LL, Zhu Z, Singh A, Loveland T, Masek J, Duke N (2011). Status and distribution of mangrove forests of the world using earth observation. satellite data (version 1.3, updated by UNEP- WCMC). Global Ecology and Biogeography 20: 154-159. Paper DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00584.x; Data URL: http://data.unep-wcmc.org/datasets/4 — 4 www.iddri.org 5 https://www.iddri.org/en/programme/biodiversity- and-ecosystems SCIENCES PO – PARIS SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS – IDDRI GETTING THE SHRIMP’S SHARE : MANGROVES DEPLETION AND SHRIMP CONSUMPTION. Page 3 Table of contents 1. Mangroves depletion: what is the problem? 5 2. Marking the Groves: Ecosystem services provided by healthy mangroves 16 3. The drivers of mangrove depletion, and the relative responsibility of shrimp farming 23 4. Three case studies: Bangladesh, Madagascar and Ecuador 33 5. Products and markets related to mangrove-depleting shrimp farming 45 6. The economics of mangrove-depleting shrimp and their relative importance in the regional economies 55 7. Certification and sustainable labelling 61 8. Are Payments for Ecosystem Services efficient tools to prevent Mangrove depletion? 67 9. Drawbacks of conventional shrimp farming, and alternatives 74 10. Consumption Alternatives to Mangrove-Depleting Shrimp 83 11. References 89 SCIENCES PO – PARIS SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS – IDDRI GETTING THE SHRIMP’S SHARE : MANGROVES DEPLETION AND SHRIMP CONSUMPTION. Page 4 1. Mangrove depletion: what is the problem? By Ana Deligny and Katarina Homolova Mangroves are a unique ecosystem. These lush Ever since, their life was undiscernible from the tidal forests are perfectly adapted to live and thrive rhythm of the ecosystem. Practicing horticulture and in the intertidal zones of tropical and sub-tropical deriving their protein from fish and crabs, the “boat coastlines and warm temperate waters. Mangroves’ people,” in their name, live among the mangroves diversity and ability to cope with changing salinities, (M. Spalding, Kainuma, and Collins 2010). near-permanent inundation of their roots by the sea, and shifting composition of coastal sedimentation Mangrove forests once lined three-quarters of the (M. Spalding, Kainuma, and Collins 2010) have world’s tropical coastlines, often sharing their endowed them with a natural resilience and made habitat with coral reefs, but over half of their area them a central pillar of a dynamic environment, a extent has now been destroyed, mostly due to sentinel where the land meets the sea. Mangrove coastal developments, aquaculture expansion, forests are home to a rich and even exceptional pollution and over-harvesting in the last fifty years biodiversity and provide essential goods and (Dear and Kemp 2005; Donato et al. 2011). Today, services to coastal communities. In-between mangroves cover less than 1% of all tropical forests submerged shrubs provide ideal nurseries for many worldwide and 0.4% of global forest areas, and they species of fish and crustaceous, protruding aerial are disappearing at rates 3-5 times greater than roots are used as hunting ground for crocodiles and average rates of forest loss thus becoming a rare snakes and molluscs simply settle their home on and increasingly fragile ecosystem (FAO 2005; M. and among the pneumatophores, while higher up in Spalding, Kainuma, and Collins 2010; UNEP 2014; the luxurious canopy birds roost and many van Lavieren et al. 2012). mammals like monkeys, deer, bats and even kangaroos, and insects rely on mangroves for their Although all forests are dynamic ecosystems that sources of food. For coastal communities, have evolved and adapted through many epochs, mangroves present many benefits by preventing the the current challenges they are facing are mostly far loss of coastline, soil erosion and attenuating the from natural and of accelerated impact. Mangroves damage from extreme weather events as storms depletion is one of the most important losses to surges and tsunamis. They also sustain abundant global biodiversity and the effects thereof will have fishing grounds, provide firewood, act as a worldwide impact. In order to understand the stormwater filters and sequestrate more carbon extent of these effects, this section provides first an from the atmosphere than