Mangroves and Shrimp Farming

photo by halseike flickr.com

Although it may seem at a glance that a mangrove forest is just a bunch of trees with crazy tangled roots mangrove forest are actually a very thriving and important marine ecosystem. The mangroves are very important because there are not many other large plants that can live in salt water. The mangroves help to prevent erosion and protect from storm winds. Mangroves are often referred to as a "nursery" because so many species of marine life chose to lay their eggs in the shelter of the mangroves inter-tangled roots. However, commercial shrimp farming is beginning to threaten this fragile environment through deforestation. This leaves many marine species without a safe place to lay their eggs or a safe shelter from large predators. According to Wikipedia about 35% of the mangrove's area has been lost in the last few decades and "The United Nations Environment Program also estimated shrimp farming causes a quarter of the destruction of mangrove forests."

This video shows the importance of mangrove forests and briefly discusses Florida's mangrove protection laws.

I think that mangroves should be protected worldwide and shrimp farming companies should replant mangroves once their shrimp farms have died off.


A lot of commercial shrimp farming happens in Latin America, Africa and Pacific islands. To put in a shrimp farm mangroves must often be destroyed. These farms can be up to 1,000 hectares in size (1 hectare=2.74 acres). However, because of the nature of shrimp farming, disease and pollution quickly wipe out large shrimp farms.Once disease has wiped out a farm the mangroves are often not replanted. This is causing a large problem within mangrove populations. As the demand for shrimp grows more mangroves are cut down and not replaced. This has huge ecological consequences from reductions in species numbers to increased erosion. All that needs to be done to start rebuilding the mangrove ecosystem is reforestation. Laws that require commercial shrimp farming agencies should be put into place in all major shrimp farming areas. Hopefully as the effects of losing mangroves become more apparent more countries will make and enforce these laws.

http://mangroveactionproject.org/issues/shrimp-farming/shrimp-farming
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove