WorldChanging: Tools, Models and Ideas for Building a Bright Green Future: Greening Shrimp

Good news for consumers of these delicious but often unsustainable
crustaceans: Oregon’s pink shrimp fishery has become the first
large-scale commercial shrimp fishery in the world to be certified sustainable by the Marine Stewardship Council,
the most respected and strictest certification group in the world–a
major step that could create a market for more certified-sustainable
shrimp farms and fisheries in the future.

Since commercial shrimp farming began in the 1970s, shrimping has
evolved into a vast international industry, with much of the world’s
market produced on large commercial farms in China, Thailand, and other
Asian countries. Shrimp farms, which can stretch over many acres,
consist largely of rows of vast ponds; each produces a single variety
of shrimp. These massive monocultures, unsurprisingly, have huge
ecological impacts. In many areas, shrimp farmers cleared out native
trees and grasses, particularly coastal mangroves, to make room for the
massive farms, with predictable consequences: Reductions in
biodiversity and an increase of erosion in areas that were already
prone to flooding. Wastewater from shrimp farms typically contains
shrimp waste, fertilizers, pesticides and antibiotics that end up
contaminating wastewater and polluting coastal areas. And while you
might think wild shrimp fisheries would have a smaller impact than vast
monocultural farms, they’re actually not that much better, with impacts
including by-catch (unwanted fish and animals that are caught as the
nets drag along the ocean floor and tossed back into the water dead)
and damage done by nets to the ocean floor itself. So finding better,
smarter ways to farm and fish for shrimp is critical for this large and
growing industry.