Ecuador
July 29, 2002
www.globalaware.org
White Gold:
By Dr. LESLIE JERMYN and MIKE NETZHAMMER.
Lider Góngora knows this part of the Pacific like the back of his hand. The
founder of the environmental organization Fundación de Defensa Ecologica (FUNDECOL,
Ecological Defense Foundation) stands stoically at the back of the boat, gripping
the handle of the 75-horsepower Yamaha outboard motor and wiping salt spray
from his face. Five hundred meters of dangerous surf separate our small boat
from the estuary at Bolivar. It is not hesitation that causes Lider Góngora
to cut the motor, leaving the boat to rise and fall helplessly in the breakers,
but "a question of timing." As the ocean seems to take a moment's respite, the
motor roars, we mount a wave and almost surf into the calm of the estuary.
On the riverbank pelicans adorn shady trees, herons stalk amongst the reeds,
and bright red crabs scuttle across muddy flats between green shoots of young
mangrove trees. But the peace and tranquility are an illusion, as are the few
mature mangrove forests that line the river. Behind this thin veil of trees,
chainsaws, mechanical diggers and gold-rush fever have taken their toll. The
farmers call the shrimps that grow in huge man-made ponds "white gold".
It has taken Ecuador 20 years to develop an industry of this magnitude, but today, this small South American country is the world's second biggest producer of shrimp. One in five inhabitants of the coastal provinces lives from shrimp aquaculture. The boom is not only an Ecuadorian phenomenon. White gold-rush fever has spread through other countries of Latin America (Mexico and Honduras) and Asia (China, Thailand, India and Bangladesh). The industry produces 930,000 tons a year at a current value of 5.6 billion US dollars.
The consumer has benefited from the boom. What was once a luxury, confined to fine restaurants and specialty shops, is today a basic food available in the local supermarket. Shelves are packed with bags of frozen shrimp of all sizes as well as shrimp rings, breaded shrimp, stir-fried shrimp and other prepared meals and snacks. Even fast food chains offer low-priced shrimp meals for the whole family.
The real effects of this production boom, and the low prices that go with it, pass unnoticed. The impact on coastal regions is both economic and environmental. Land that was formerly deemed worthless and left to the poor has become the target of corporate and political battles fought not only in the courts and the parliaments, but also with fists and guns and at the cost of many lives. Once natural and untouched landscapes have become crisis zones.
Muisne, a small coastal town in northwestern Ecuador, is a living example of this worldwide struggle between socio-economic and environmental priorities and corporate tycoons infected with white-gold fever. This is where Lider Góngora founded FUNDECOL to fight the continued expansion of shrimp farms by patrolling the remaining green areas and documenting illegal clearing of mangrove forests.
These patrols often take him to visit the shell gatherers at Bolivar, on an island between salt and freshwater, on the other side of Pacific breakers, at the end of the world. This once thriving community fights for its existence as shrimp farmers besiege the village with an ever-tightening noose of shrimp ponds.
***
Some would argue nature has been kind to Guayaquil, Ecuador's primary port and commercial center far to the south of Muisne. On one side, the river Guayas brings fresh water into the delta south of the city. On the other, Pacific waters push inland. The resulting marshlands between the two flows are rich in salt and nutrients and perfect for shrimp cultivation.
On a moonless night, the desolate landscape of shrimp pools the size of football fields, separated by retaining walls of mud, reflect only the halogen spotlights that form perimeter security. Most nights, that is the only light and the only activity on the farm. However, when the shrimp in a particular pool reach prime selling weight (12-14 ounces), they are harvested at night when the temperature is at its lowest and the risk of damage to the meat from warming is at a minimum. Then, a single pool becomes a hive of activity as the pool is drained and its bounty collected.
A single spotlight on the sluice gate attracts the shrimps. They gather at the end of the huge pool, leaping out of the water toward the light. As the pool empties directly into the river through the gate, the current compels them toward the light and the way to freedom. But the fine net drawn across the outside of the sluice foils any chance of escape. As they collect in the net, workers standing up to their waists in rushing water scoop the animals into deep plastic trays. These are covered to prevent the shrimp from jumping out as the trays are handed up in a continuous rhythm to those waiting on the pool wall. Mosquitoes swarm around the bare heads and arms of the workers in the humid air. Everything and everyone is wet: the mud is slick; the workers are covered in sweat and water. A sea of tiny red eyes shines bright in the artificial light for the last time before the trays are immersed in ice and sodium metabisulphate to preserve the delicate meat. Without delay, these plastic coffins are stacked in the freezer truck waiting on the retaining wall with its motor humming.
When Eric Notarianni describes his harvest, he seems to love this 10 footed sea creature with its long head and plump little body. This is not surprising given that the 55-year-old Scotsman's life is inseparable from shrimps. He began in the Ecuadorian shrimp industry before it could be called an industry. During the boom years of the 80's and 90's, he was the vice-president of the National Chamber of Aquaculture. Today, he is the president of Sociedad Nacional de Galapagos (SONGA), one of the biggest shrimp producers in Ecuador. He rhymes off the stats without pause: Ecuador has 2000 shrimp farms occupying 200,000 hectares, an area the size of the Aruba or the Channel Islands; last year they produced 150,000 tons, 80 percent of which was exported with more than half going to the USA and the rest to Asia and Europe; the trade in white gold reaped 900 million US dollars. Only bananas and oil exceeded these figures in Ecuador. Prospects for the industry look good. The demand for shrimp is rising. North Americans and Japanese eat between two and four kilos per year per person.
From his desk, Notorianni watches his workers scurrying through the tiled processing plant. Part-time women workers line the long tables pulling heads off shrimp. Machines sort and size cleaned shrimps before they are watered and packed in freezer ready boxes for shipment. Behind him, his office window overlooks an artificial landscape of canals, waste pipes and ponds. They shine brightly in the hot sun and stretch to the horizon and beyond. SONGA's five thousand hectares is a sizeable holding and only a ride in the jeep reveals its true dimension. Pond after pond form a featureless landscape of sluice gates, pumps, pipes and ditches, through which not a soul moves.
Shrimp farms require very little maintenance and therefore few full-time workers. The industry frequently sets up shop in areas that have traditionally grown rice, as in Guayaquil, Bangladesh and India. With every new shrimp-pond, rice paddies are lost and with them, food for local inhabitants. For example, in the Krishna-Godavari Delta, the breadbasket of the Indian province of Andhra Pradesh, 15% of the rice fields are now producing shrimp for export. This also costs jobs because whereas rice requires 50 workers per hectare, shrimp farming requires only 5 part-time workers for the same area. Greenpeace warns of a mass exodus of coastal inhabitants. In the Stakhira region of Bangladesh, 40% of the population, a total of 120,000 people, have been driven out by lack of food and jobs.
Human densities are low, but shrimp densities are as high as economically possible. Notorianni differentiates between traditional farming methods, semi-intensive and intensive methods by the number of larvae per hectare. Once, 25,000 larvae per hectare satisfied the farmer. Today, modern farms cultivate between 100,000 and 600,000 larvae, boosting production from 500 to 20,000 kilos per hectare. The more concentrated the larvae, the greater are the costs of food, ventilators, and fertilizers to encourage plankton growth (food for the shrimp), as well as pumps and fuel for the continuous exchange of water in the pools. Asian farms are mostly intensive, while Ecuadorian farms are classed semi-intensive. "Not many producers worldwide use as few larvae per hectare as we do", argues Notorianni.
One advantage of lower density production is that the pools can be used longer. Some pools in Ecuador are still being used after 30 years of production, says the Scot, whereas pools at intensive farms are often contaminated after just 10 years. The biggest problem with higher density production is the increased susceptibility to bacteria, fungus and viruses. Epidemics are common. In 1988, Taiwan's production was annihilated by a virus, and in 1992 and 1993, the White Spot Virus destroyed harvests in China and Thailand. The government in Peking estimated losses at one billion US dollars. Since losses can be enormous, fear of them pushes farmers to use more and more antibiotics and other medicines. Eric Notorianni sees "no danger whatsoever for consumers or the environment." But the world food and drug watchdog organization, the FAO, warns of the dangers of increasing use of antibiotics in agribusiness.
Ecuador's harvests were affected in 1992. The Taura Syndrome Virus cost two hundred million US dollars and the loss of 17,000 hectares of production area. As a result, shrimp farmers moved northward to the area around Esmeraldas, Muisne and Bolivar -- Ecuador's only remaining untouched coastline.
***
"I used to find 350 shells a day, today I'm lucky if it's a 100", complains Gladys Cortéz Castillo. The furrows on her brow signal her anger. The president of the shell gatherers association of Bolivar stands like the other women, mired knee-deep in mud. She is bent forward at the waist and her hands disappear into the earth searching for those scarce shells. The search has become more difficult since the shrimp-farmers occupied land on both sides of the village and the vast area of mangrove became a tapestry of ponds, sluices and canals.
Her clothes are smeared with muck the color of crude oil. With each step she sinks to her knees. Rubber gloves protect her from a chance encounter with a frog-like fish whose poison burns the skin. Thankfully the fish are rare -- unlike the clouds of mosquitoes that swarm around her head. Sometimes Gladys Castillo hates her work. The 150 cockle-like shells in her basket bring in 15,000 Sucres from local restaurateurs - less than $3.50 US or the equivalent of 3 kilos of rice for four hours work.
She remembers her job in the bar in Esmeraldas, the big city to the north, with nostalgia. But when they fired her, she had to return to her village. To Bolivar, a town where red-flowered Jacaranda trees lend the streets an air of paradise and Salsa music fills the air. The raised wooden houses are without running water and the doors of the church remain closed because the priest only finds Bolivar once a year. Even the authorities have forgotten the place and its 2000 inhabitants. The last policeman succumbed to boredom and the bottle until one day he just disappeared. Many of the inhabitants have followed him because they cannot live from the shells anymore and there is little other work.
The village has been dying slowly. Its people have mostly given in to lethargy, alcohol or both. Gladys Castillo is an exception. She founded "Virgen de la lajas," a group of three dozen concheras (women who gather shells) committed to preserving their way of life. They demand that illegal, unlicensed farms be closed and replanted with mangrove trees. They also fight those who poison their environment. From the backdoor of her wooden hut, the 34-year-old looks directly across the river to a waste pipe of the neighboring shrimp farm. The owner dumps his cocktail of chemicals, antibiotics, fishmeal and shrimp feces into the river that is her lifeline right before her eyes. This is standard practice along the river and along the entire coast of Ecuador.
Can the waterways around Bolivar absorb the poisonous mixture without consequences? Does it affect the drinking water? Is the decline of shells connected? All questions for which Gladys Castillo has answers but no firm proof -- just her half-empty shell basket and visions of dead fish floating in the river in ever larger numbers. Her commitment to the twin causes of mangroves and clean water does not stem from a romantic or idealistic need to feel she is doing the right thing. She is not trying to save the planet. For her, the consequences of inaction are apparent on a daily basis and they are painful. She tastes it when she drinks and sees it in the faces of her children when they cry because they are hungry. The shells are a gift of nature. They provide a social net and as their numbers dwindle, her family is slipping further and further through that net.
Increased shrimp production also requires more fishmeal. Each kilo of shrimps requires at least two kilos of feed - more in nutrient deficient areas. Greenpeace estimates that Asian aquaculture alone uses one fifth of the world's fishmeal production, which increases the strain on the entire fishing industry. Peruvian fishermen, who provide the majority of fish for the fishmeal industry, are already complaining of declining catches.
Their existence, like that of their conchera colleagues in Bolivar 500 km to the north, is on the line. Gladys, for one, is prepared to fight to protect her existence and that of her three children. That is why she takes the time to plant mangrove shoots on mudflats that have been donated by aid organizations. That is why she travels to the capital, Quito, to join in the demonstrations outside the president's palace, even when this means risking the teargas and rubber truncheons of the police.
Her commitment provokes argument, even at home. When her words and actions arouse the anger of local shrimp farmers, her husband wishes she would stop. "She forgets that, before shrimp farming, the only work for men was fishing, there was no other choice!" Pablo Garcia Allosa works on a shrimp farm and earns twice as many Sucres as his wife, about $75US a month. But it is only their joint income that allows them to send 14-year-old Andrea, their oldest daughter, to school in Esmeraldas in the hope that she will provide a better future for the whole family. Their family conflict epitomizes the problem for Ecuador: they need shrimps and mangroves to survive.
The road along this part of the coast is no more than a patchwork of potholes left behind by El Nińo's storms. Four wheel drives negotiate river crossings in the shadow of broken bridges and buses rumble along, gears grinding and thick black exhaust shooting skywards. Third or fourth-hand American trucks join the motorized parade, loaded with wood and fuel, food and fishmeal, compressors and mechanical diggers, their axles groaning under the weight. When FUNDECOL's founder, Lider Góngora, takes this road, each heavily guarded shrimp transport he sees drives home the brutal reality: the aquaculture industry is gearing up and marching ahead despite the resistance of environmental organizations and local people.
Worldwide, 5% of mangrove forests have been lost in the past 10 years. The total is now down to 20 million hectares and falling. Many nations want to take part in the "White Gold Rush." Indonesia, for one, has plans to clear one million hectares of mangrove and countries like Ghana, Tanzania and Nicaragua wish to do likewise.
"In the Muisne area, shrimp farmers have cut 90% of the mangroves," Lider explains. He estimates that 2/3 of Ecuador's 360,000 hectares of protected mangrove have been lost. There is no proof. The Ecuadorian Navy controls access to recent satellite photographs. As the official guardians of coastal regions, they will only release photographs from 1995, which show a mere 54,000 lost hectares. The fact that the majority of illegal shrimp farms are in areas controlled by the navy lends support to Lider's speculative estimate.
Since the Ecuadorian government first took steps to protect mangroves in 1985, the pace of tree cutting has actually increased. At that time, Lider Góngora believed that the industry could be stopped using the law. He raises melancholy eyes to look at a shrimp industry billboard, a symbol of their powerful PR machine, while he quietly details a few of the many Ecuadorian laws that protect mangroves. The Decreto Ejecutivo (Executive Decree) of 1985 stipulates a 30-day prison sentence for each and every illegally cut mangrove tree. A year later, the government declared a protected zone of 360,000 hectares. In 1994, another Executive Decree declared a 5-year moratorium on tree cutting. "But in fact," Lider bitterly explains, "nothing changed. Even inside the doubly protected area, farmers continue to cut. In the north of Ecuador farmers are currently building pools inside the National Park, under the noses of the Police and Park Authorities."
***
By ignoring this situation, the authorities further demonstrate the already obvious connection between the shrimp industry and politics. The former ambassador to the United States, Alberto Maspons, is today president of El Rosario, Ecuador's second biggest shrimp company. The longtime Director of the Ministry of Fishing, Nancy Cely Icaza, who was responsible for the issue of licenses and the enforcement of law, has jumped ships and is today running the Chamber of Aquaculture - the shrimp industry's PR machine. As Lider observes, "In Ecuador the shrimp farmers are their own control mechanism, no wonder nobody goes to prison."
The Ecuadorian Government's official statistic for illegal shrimp farms is 14,000 hectares. But this does not include farmers who went to the trouble to fake their papers or purchase documents. As Lider acknowledges, "There are many illegal ways to legalize things." With a sleight of hand, official documents are altered and mangrove forests become "bays and beaches", "salt-plains" or "high lands." These areas do not fall under the 1985 law and can be "legally" used. Another alternative is to quietly divert water required by the trees. Likewise, the boundaries of National Parks can slowly converge on one another until the park disappears altogether. It is simply a question of money. In Ecuador, a system of 'favours' and mutual 'back-scratching' reigns.
"Our laws are first class, but the enforcement of those laws is the problem," says the new environmental minister, Yolanda Kolabadse, when questioned about corruption. She wants to introduce more controls in the coastal regions and strengthen the influence of local governments. She does not say how she intends to achieve this and admits, "the authorities have absolutely no resources." Her only choice is to work with the industry. Fighting them, she knows, would fail. Their clout with the government is too strong, backed as it is with 900 million US dollars in export earnings per annum and 250,000 jobs. This effectively prevents any consideration of amendments to the current laws or their application.
This constellation is, for Lider Góngora, one of the reasons why a worldwide boycott seems to be the only way to tighten up the law and close the gaps. This idea is not his alone. Organizations in India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Mexico, and Tanzania are also asking western consumers not to buy shrimps. "A boycott," the environmentalist knows, "is not the answer, but the only way we can put pressure on the industry."
"I am sorry," says Nancy Cely Icaza, as she slaps her hand on the table. The Director of the Ecuadorian Chamber of Aquaculture is continuously answering questions about the cutting of mangroves, chemical use on farms, harassment and displacement of local communities and shrimp epidemics. She does not dispute the fact that many farmers in the northern provinces are operating illegally, "But," she says, "the situation in the North is not the situation here." Guayaquil is Ecuador's richest city and the center of the industry. "Hardly a tree is cut here and we obey the law to the letter!" she says, in a tone that defies argument. Cely Icaza knows the arguments of her enemies and does not bother to wait for accusations, but goes straight on the offensive. "Of course mangroves have been cut in Guayaquil, but that was a long time ago and certainly not since 1994", the year the Government introduced the ban. "Nobody thought about the ecological effects in those days. But today we do. We have learned from our mistakes," she adds. And, as if to strike a blow at the environmentalists, she says, "We are not just talking about it but doing it."
As proof of the industry's commitment to the environment, Cely Icaza explains, "In former days we used wild larvae, today many farmers are using bred larvae, thus avoiding the consequences of destroying other larvae." The problem is that industrial shrimp farming cannot allow the animals to return to the sea to breed. As well, to be cost effective, each pool must be stocked with larvae of the same age in order to control for the size of the animals at harvest time. These larvae have traditionally been taken from the sea. However, only one in ten of the larvae caught in the sea are shrimp. Nine are other breeds of fish, and once removed from the ocean, are lost. Contrary to Cely Icaza's claims, the fact is that the industry cannot produce enough larvae so they continue to take them from the wild. She goes on to argue that water taken from the rivers is pumped into shrimp pools and returned to the rivers in a continuous cycle. "It goes back cleaner than it went in", she says. "The quality of the Guayas River is no worse now than 30 years ago", she claims as further proof against the unnecessary and baseless criticism of her industry. The consequences of biochemical contaminants in natural water systems go unremarked.
Today, shrimp farmers finance a project called "Fundación Natura" (Nature Foundation) to protect the mangroves. They are the biggest environmental organization in the country and fly regularly over the mangroves. Farmers found cutting mangroves are charged and named in the shrimp farmers' news bulletin. Cely Icaza proudly shows off one notice in the magazine accusing one of the countries biggest shrimp farmers. She sees absolutely no reason for a boycott, "that would push our country and its people into a crisis," she warns. "We need a strong lobby to make our case." The Chamber is armed for just that purpose. Seven hundred shrimp farmers (70% of the total) united with all the exporters and producers 5 years ago to prevent a boycott in their most important market, North America. Farmers and US importers recently formed the "US Global Aquaculture Alliance". They hope to stop the "unfair attacks of the greens" with finance experts and lawyers. ***
Evenings, when the sky and the waterways around Bolivar take on the reddish glow of the sinking sun, the end of the world shines in a warm, magic light. Here, precariously balanced between a few remaining mangrove trees and the Pacific Ocean, time is moving on. Today, the village stands as an example of a questionable modernity. Agrobusiness investments have ousted subsistence industries and with them, the people who depended on them -- the shell collectors and fishermen. Father Josef in Muisne watches the crack widen between shrimp farmers and their opponents in the region. "The riches of nature used to be divided equally among the people, but since the shrimp industry took hold, profits are in the hands of the few." While there are few people collecting the profits at the top, there are more who are making a decent living from the shrimp boom directly and indirectly: the 300 workers who earn above average wages in the industry as well as boat drivers; hotel-, restaurant-, gas station- and storeowners who benefit indirectly. The rest, however, have to work 15-hour days for US$6.
Whether the Ecuadorian shrimp industry has a positive or negative effect on the national economy is not clear. What is clear is that the boom will continue. Opponents have few resources to fight the partnership of vast capital and huge profits. Not even the government has the political will to squeeze the "gold-diggers" with a legal corset. Even if the financial success story of the Ecuadorian shrimp industry were associated with the oppression of local people and environmental destruction, there could be no return to the status quo of 1968. Replanting the lost 200,000 hectares would not make political or social sense.
What would be sensible, as all environmental organizations agree, is an industry that operates only in properly licensed areas with control in the hands of independent bodies rather than the industry's own mouthpieces like the Chamber of Aquaculture and Fundación Natura. As well, there has to be industry-wide long term environmental planning in place of short term 'smash and grab' policies designed to maximize profits. Finally, the industry must be circumscribed geographically so that coastal people have room to live and work.
Lider Góngora sees no sign of any change, and therefore proposes only two options for the environmentalists and opponents of the industry: dialogue or boycott. This leaves the success of the opposition in the hands of consumers in the export countries. If consumers buy the cheapest products - eating shrimp as if it were chicken - they encourage the industry to continue its current course and ignore social and ecological consequences. On the other hand, avoiding this luxury food relieves the pressure on coastal regions and their populations, but also destroys jobs.
Perhaps the real choice for the consumer lies somewhere in between: accept a higher price, one that reflects the real cost of this luxury, by consuming only shrimps produced on ecological farms. The problem is that there is still no control mechanism in place although western buyers and shrimp producers are discussing an environmental label. This begs as many questions as it answers: Who will control the label and the farmers to make sure they conform? Who will issue the lucrative certificate? And, who will control the controllers in countries like Ecuador rife with poverty and corruption?
© The Global Aware Cooperative and the authors Dr. Leslie Jermyn and Mike Netzhammer.
leslie@globalaware.org
mike@globalaware.org info@globalaware.org