Global Shrimp Activism: Trends or Tendencies?

Research Report

Global Shrimp Activism: Trends or Tendencies? Jasper Goss, David Burch, and Roy E. Rickson1

1995:11-12). In spite of an industry-supported appeal by the affected state governments, activists achieved a significant victory in late 1996 when the Court upheld its initial decision and ordered compensation payments for affected communities (Indian Supreme Court 1996; Mangrove Action Project Newsletter 1996). The major concerns for community groups have been "access to traditional fisheries, displacement of local people, ground water pumping and the environment." (World Shrimp Farming 1995: 24). In addition, members of the Indian National Fisheries Union have participated in movements against the liberalization of the Indian economy and the further participation of foreign capital in the shrimp industry. Notwithstanding the successes of these coalitions, the situation remains volatile as parliamentary changes to coastal regulation laws could nullify the Supreme Court decision (Goss 1998). In Malaysia protracted battles between Saudi shrimp investors and local people allied with the Consumers' Association of Penang led to a series of court wins for locals, but eventually the Kedah state government simply amended local planning laws to allow the farm to go ahead (Seabrook 1995:14-16; Raman 1996:5-9). This is a profound example of what Skladany and Harris (1995:184) see as "the key factor ... [where the] transformation of property regimes allows for construction of private ponds and emplaces relatively irreversible structures in environmentally sensitive areas—the critical point where the sea meets land." The project ultimately resulted in loss of land control by 800 locals (Utusan Konsumer 1995). More recently the shrimp farm has met with problems concerning disease and financial viability, with the Kedah state government to some extent admitting that it had made serious errors (Utusan Konsumer 1997:1-3). In Thailand, resistance has not been as explicit as in India and Malaysia. However, a number of groups (for example, Yadfon in the southern Thai province of Trang and the NGOs organized around the Thai Development Support Committee) have sought limits to the expansion of shrimp farms through the generation of alternative income sources and have sought to protect the rights of workers within the shrimp-processing factories. The major difference between Thailand and other shrimp-producing countries is that its zonal and planning regulations are often not enforced and the institutions that are meant to preserve those regulations have no particular precedence as safeguards or watchdogs

Jasper Goss is a doctoral candidate working on agri-food restructuring in Thailand, David Burch is associate professor in the School of Science, Roy Rickson is reader in the Australian School of Environmental Studies at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia.

In recent years the rise of shrimp aquaculture activity has led to a number of analyses focusing on its environmental implications (Flaherty and Choomjet 1995; Khor 1995; KnudHansen 1995; Rajagopal 1995; Nixon 1996), its significance in industrialized agri-food production in the Third World (Skladany and Harris 1995; Burch 1996; Goss, Burch, and Rickson forthcoming), and to a lesser extent, the consequences of its social, ecological, and economic transformations (Raman 1996; Greenpeace 1997; Gronski 1997; Shiva and Karir 1997). However, the noticeable rise in environmentally and socially concerned non-governmental organizations (NGOs), whose primary focus is combatting the consequences of intensive shrimp aquaculture, has so far received little attention in theoretical terms. This paper presents a brief survey of the groups currently contesting the shrimp industry and also offers some tentative ideas about the possible meanings of these new groups in relation to current debates about globalization, conceptions of agency at "local" levels, and notions of "new social movements." "Traditional" Groupings: Nationally Focused Activities From India to Ecuador, many different groups have organized into movements against shrimp farming. The rapid expansion of shrimp farming in the late 1980s2 resulted in dramatic transformations in the livelihoods of coastal dwellers and rural inhabitants. Protests have centered around issues of pollution, control of lands, access to dean water resources, and reduction of surrounding soil quality. In 1995 India's Supreme Court placed an indefinite ban on intensive shrimp farming on agricultural lands (including salt farms) in three eastern coastal states (Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Pondicherry) because of actions taken by various environmental and community groups (Khor

Culture & Agriculture

37

Vol. 20, No. 1

Spring 1998

recent campaigns and analyses toward the area of environmental degradation (Greenpeace 1997). Finally, there has been a shrimp tribunal at the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development that has sought to make an assessment of the international ramifications of shrimp aquaculture and set limits and guidelines to its further expansion.3 There is much evidence that this transnational environmental activism has had significant affects on the shrimp industry. Marketers' representatives in the United States, for instance, have adopted the position that there is no choice but to fight environmentalists.4 The claims that shrimp farming often only benefits larger companies or outside interests are also beginning to have greater resonance, especially as the high mobility of the shrimp industry is becoming obvious. Although protests have not reached levels significant enough to halt shrimp farming in the major areas of production, our analysis of the shrimp industry suggests that this could prove to be highly disruptive for further global expansion. This has, to a certain extent, been exemplified by the recent activities of the Mangrove Action Project in providing information and activist help to campaigners in Tanzania—the cunent site envisioned for the expansion of intensive shrimp farming in the African continent (Mangrove Action Project Update 1996). However, one must be careful not to ascribe from a number of trends the idea that these processes represent general tendencies on the paths of globalization. We believe that to a certain extent the nature of opposition to the expansion of shrimp aquaculture demonstrates processes that avoid what Harvey (1996) terms "militant particularism." That is, processes of opposition to shrimp farming are not solely based on the preservation of "localist" ideals but occur in an arena that is heterogeneous in its nationalities and ethnicities. Moreover, the concerns raised by activists should not be treated as single-issue or primarily environmentally focused, the questioning of economic structures implicit in the shrimpproduction process, the legitimacy of local governments and institutions, and the provision of welfare and social security. All of these factor into the aims and desires of those campaigning against the shrimp industry. Thus, the theoretical question that needs further examination is whether or not this process is a trend or tendency within the increasingly mobile and dynamic global economy. This process of resistance to shrimp farming cannot be claimed as a unique global phenomenon—the opposition to whaling and dolphins caught in fishing nets spring to mind as other examples of movements organized through global activism.5 However, it does pose interesting ideas when considering that the processes uniting activists across many parts of the world are the result not of concerns for "beautiful" animals but the fact that the economic organization of the shrimp industry is inherently destructive to local communities on a global scale.6

(Claridge 1996:7-9). Additionally, given the general suitability of most to the Thai coastline to shrimp farming, industry has been able to expand into new sites with little to hamper it geographically. In Ecuador, there have been competing responses to shrimp fanning with some environmental groups (such as Accion Ecologica) calling for an outright boycott of Ecuadorian shrimp, while others (like Fundaci6n Nature) have sought to regulate the industry so that it adheres to stringent environmental standards (Nixon 1996:34). In Indonesia, shrimp farming has been used as part of the Javanese transmigration (colonization) program and, coupled with investors, farms have been set up in Sumatra and Sulawesi (World Shrimp Farming 1995:23). The extent to which recent rioting by local indigenous peoples in various Indonesian provinces (such as Irian Jaya) is a result of the transmigration policies is certainly a contentious issue for the Javanese leadership. However, it is clear that the transmigration process to the peripheral regions of the Indonesian empire will lead to further conflict between the original inhabitants of those regions and the new arrivals. Shrimp fanning will undoubtedly be one of the means utilized for the "economic development" of these regions. Transnational Responses to Shrimp Aquaculture: Reorganizing Resistance Yet, beyond the processes described above, which have a national focus, there have been broader developments in the responses of local communities and activists. Groups seeking to combat the nature of shrimp farming and the global mobility of companies, like the Thai-based agribusiness multinational Charoen Pokphand, have in some senses adopted similar tactics to those of the industry to which they are opposed. By this we mean that they have begun to take a global focus in their campaign activities and, rather than simply concentrating on a government-by-government strategy, there has appeared a number of groupings that embrace people irrespective of locality while at the same time as drawing critical support from their specific "localities" (see McMichael 1996,1997). One such group is the International Network Against Unsustainable Aquaculture which, while operating under the auspices of the Consumers' Association of Penang (Malaysia), has brought together activists and farmers from India, Thailand, Bangladesh and Indonesia. The Mangrove Action Project, based in Seattle, Washington, has sought links throughout South Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America in its campaigns against the destruction of mangrove regions. Greenpeace International, perhaps the original global "green warrior," has taken an interest in the activities of the shrimp industry in Asia and has targeted some of its

Culture & Agriculture

38

Vol. 20, No. 1 Spring 1998

Conclusion

4. To quote a U.S. National Fisheries Institute spokesperson, addressing the World Aquaculture Society Conference, Bangkok, January 1996, "you must fight them"—"them," of course, refers to environmentalists. The speaker, in no uncertain terms, made clear his displeasure with current activists and felt that there was no point whatsoever in entering into negotiations.

Cautiously, we would identify resistance to shrimp aquaculture as a trend within the processes of globalization. It would be a major leap to conceive of shrimp activism as a tendency; that is, a process to be repeated as the activities of capital further transform the social and environmental patterns of the world. Yet the strength of resistance and its diversity does hint at the ability of contemporary processes to unify groups in ways that were not possible even twenty years ago. Certainly the transformation of communications technology has been part of this, but changes in technology will hardly ever be driven by the needs of people in opposition to transnational capital. In addition to financial constraints, activists are in unequal positions vis-a-vis shrimpfarming companies, national governments and international development bodies, all of which encourage the further expansion of intensive shrimp aquaculture. Clearly, though, agency from a local level has had a significant affect on the continuing development of the shrimp industry. What is interesting in terms of other newly emerging globally sourced industries is whether the processes of globalization will intensify the formation of organizations at a "local/global" level (similar to shrimp farming opposition) at the same time as capital intensifies its transformations of local economies.

5. For an interesting discussion of the various sources of resistance to agri-food globalization see Buttel (1997). 6. Of course we must be careful what we ascribe as "global." Intensive shrimp farming, so far, is a mainly tropical or subtropical coastal activity within the "Third World." It can be (and is) carried out elsewhere, but in comparison to the profitability of current sites, investors, generally, see relocation away from the coast as prohibitive. References Cited

Burch, D. 1996 Globalised Agriculture and Agri-food Restructuring in Southeast Asia: The Thai Experience. In Globalization and Agri-Food Restructuring: Perspectives from the Australasia Region. D. Burch, R. Rickson and G. Lawrence, eds. Pp 323-344. Aldershot: Avebury. Buttel, F. 1997 Some Observations on Agro-Food Change and the Future of Agricultural Sustainability Movements. In Globalising Food: Agrarian Questions and Global Restructuring. D. Goodman and M. Watts, eds. Pp 344-365. London: Routledge.

Notes

1. Funding for this research was carried out through grants from the Australian Research Council and the Science Policy Research Centre and the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, Griffith University. This article is an elaboration of certain ideas presented in a paper entitled "Shrimp Aquaculture and the Third World: Power, Production and Transformations," at the Agri-Food Research Network Conference, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, 4 July 1996.

Claridge, G. 1996 Legal Approaches to Controlling the Impacts of Intensive Shrimp Aquaculture: Adverse Factors in the Thai Situation. Paper presented at the International Law Institute Workshop on the Legal and Regulatory Aspects of Aquaculture in India and Southeast Asia, Bangkok, Thailand. Dewalt, B., P. Vergne and M. Hardin 1996 Shrimp Aquaculture Development and the Environment: People, Mangroves and Fisheries on the Gulf of Fonseca, Honduras. World Development 24(7):1193-1208.

2. Between 1982 and 1992 world shrimp farming increased from 84,000 metric tons to 721,000 metric tons or, in proportional terms for the same period, shrimp farming increased from 5 percent of total shrimp production (capture and farmed) to 27 percent. 1996 estimates put world farmed shrimp production at 693,000 metric tons or 25 percent of world production (World Shrimp Farming 1996:143).

Flaherty, M. and C. Karnjanakesorn 1995 Marine Shrimp Aquaculture and Natural Resource Degradation in Thailand. Environmental Management 19(l):27-37.

3. This is a very brief summary of the present and ongoing activities of various NGOs throughout the world. Interest in shrimp aquaculture has also meant international bureaucratic bodies have begun to examine the shrimp industries. Examples include the World Wide Fund for Nature, a relatively mainstream semigovernmental organization, which has recently finished a major report, and the Food and Agriculture Organisation's Committee on Fisheries, which has commissioned a number of assessments of the social and environmental impacts of shrimp aquaculture.

Culture & Agriculture

Goss,J.

1998 Conflict and Resistance in Indian Shrimp Aquaculture. Economic and Political Weekly 33 (8) -.383-384. Goss, J., D. Burch and R. Rickson Forthcoming Agri-food Restructuring and Third World Transnational: The Case of CP, Thailand and the Global Shrimp Industry. World development.

39

Vol. 20, No. 1 Spring 1998

Greenpeace 1997 Shrimp: The Devastating Legacy. Washington, DC: Greenpeace Gronski, R. 1997 Development and Degradation: Intensive Shrimp Culture and Ecological Rebuke in Southern Thailand. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri, Columbia.

Nixon, W. 1996 Rainforest Shrimp. Mother Jones 21 (2):30-35,71-73.

Harvey, D. 1996 Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Raman, M. 1996 The Impact of Aquaculture on Communities. CAP-SAM National Conference, Penang, Malaysia.

Indian Supreme Court 1996 S. Jagannath vs Union of India & Ors. (11/12/1996). In Supreme Court Almanac. T. V. S. Narasimhachai, ed. Pp 167-216. New Delhi, India: LIPS Publications.

Seabrook, J. 1995 Malaysian Farmers Battle Aquaculture Project. Third World Resurgence 59:14-17.

Rajagopal, A. 1995 Intensive Shrimp Culture and its Environmental Impact in Tamil Nadu, India. Development Education Exchange Papers, Food and Agriculture Organization, Bangkok.

Shiva, V. and G. Karir 1997 Towards Sustainable Aquaculture. Chenmmeenkettu Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology, New Delhi, India.

Khor, M. 1995 Protest Over Shrimp Farms Spread through India. Third World Resurgence 59:11-13. Knud-Hansen, C. 1995 Shrimp Mariculture: Environmental Impacts and Regulations with a Focus on Thailand. Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law 6(l):183-200.

Skladany, M. and C. Harris 1995 On Global Pond: International Development and Commodity Chains in the Shrimp Industry. In Food and Agrarian Orders in the World-Economy. P. McMichael, ed. Pp. 169-191. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Mangrove Action Project 1996 Newsletter. December.

Utusan Konsumer 1995 February. Malaysia.

Mangrove Action Project 1996 Update, [various months].

1997 January. Malaysia. McMichael, P. 1996 Globalization: Myths and Realities. Rural Sociology 61(l):25-55.

World Shrimp Farming 1996 Annual Report. San Diego: Shrimp News International. 1997 Annual Report. San Diego: Shrimp News International.

1997 Rethinking Globalization: The Agrarian Question Revisited. Review of International Political Economy 4(4):630-662.

Culture & Agriculture

40

Vol. 20, No. 1 Spring 1998