WALMART CERTIFICATION of SHRIMP

[clarionreef]

Wal-Mart shrimp certification seen as threat to mangroves
Date: 29-01-2006
Source:MAP Email: [email protected]
Wal-Mart partnership with Darden and the Global Aquaculture Alliance to "certify" farmed shrimp utilizing very faulty standards will threaten the vital coastal wetland areas, including mangrove forests, according to s press release from the Mangrove Action Project (MAP).

Alfredo Quarto, MAP's executive director, will be attending the Seattle Seafood Summit conference to be held Jan. 29-31 at the Mariott Waterfront Hotel handing out a MAP paper to participants detailing the problems of the move. MAP believes this certification scheme will lead to further rapid global mangrove forest loss, endangering coastal communities by removing the protective greenbelts that can greatly lessen the impacts from future tsunamis and hurricanes, among other important considerations.

According to MAP, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, and Darden Restaurants, parent company of Red Lobster, intend to, starting in early 2006, "begin certifying all of their imported farm-raised shrimp to ensure it is grown in a sustainable way, with minimal impacts on the environment." The certifying organization chosen for third-party review is the Aquaculture Certification Council (ACC), www.aquaculturecertification.org, which is utilizing a description of Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) developed by the Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA), itself a powerful shrimp industry consortium.

MAP is familiar with the BAP standards and similar sets of standards established over the years, and have found these to be inadequate in ensuring ecological sustainability and social equity. After reviewing the BAP standards promoted by the GAA, MAP and the Environmental Justice Foundation, www.ejfoundation.org, have both provided detailed comments to Wal-Mart and GAA about their inadequacy. Similar comments have been provided in the past to GAA, as the BAP standards have been in place for several years.

In the release, MAP expresses concern about the "all you can eat" shrimp fever that is spreading like its own pandemic across the United States, leaving ruin and despair in the developing nations in the global South where the great majority of farmed shrimp are produced and exported. In view of the 2004 tsunami that devastated these same coastal regions afflicted with widespread mangrove wetland loss, and in view of the now much better understood relation between coastal wetlands and the buffering effects these have against tsunamis (Indian Ocean) and hurricanes (US-Caribbean (Katrina, Rita, Mitch, etc.)), MAP ask US consumers, "How much more mangrove loss from farmed shrimp can you stomach?" MAP urges all consumers to lessen their appetites for farmed shrimp, and demand that the misleading and inadequate attempt at certification now being promoted by Wal-Mart, Darden and the Global Aquaculture Alliance be discontinued immediately.
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So much for the novelty and nobility of the concept of certification.
Then again, our own groups certified the depleted Buhol areas of Batasan and Clarin off Buhol as sustainable . Walmarts certification has to be at least as credible as that.
Soon Websters will list whitewash as a synonym for certification if these 'pay to play' gambits become the corporate norm.
Steve

 

[Meloco14]

Hmm, this is interesting. I have recently been all for farmed shrimp, but this has changed my mind. Is the majority of farmed shrimp contributing to mangrove and other coastal deterioration or is it just the farmed shrimp certified by BAP? What percentage of farmed shrimp available certified by BAP vs. other certification organizations (are there others? or is BAP the major player?). I did a report on commercial fishing bycatch a few years ago and wild caught shrimp is one of the worst industries as far as bycatch. It was something like 8 pounds of bycatch for every 1 pound of shrimp caught by trawlers (not including the sea turtle deaths). That had me very concerned about buying wild caught shrimp. Now it seems that no shrimp is a good shrimp 8O . Maybe the commercial shrimpers have cleaned up their act in recent years and bycatch is down, but I doubt it. Oh well, good thing I rarely eat shrimp as it is.

 

[clarionreef]

Unfortunately....
The farmed shrimp industry is very destructive to mangrove habitats that were the cradles of life for many species that feed people, especially the uncounted locals.
Farmed shrimp, like farmed tuna are becoming ecological fiascos and disasters. Tunas even worse.
Half the coast of Thailand is so full of shrimp farms as to have ruined it.

The cost of ruining the previous habitat is huge but only the export income from richer shrimp shippers is counted....not the negative income or the uncounted income from ruining other prospects.
The people there are being turned into shrimp farm workers and kept as poor as ever.
The blind banter and blather that Aquaculture is here to save the reefs has fooled many people too lazy to look closer!
Hail victory for farming the seas! These new, oceanic feedlots are a most inefficient conversion of protien imagineable.
And they will purchase certification to suggest that they are not.

Steve

 

[clarionreef]

From the Earth Island Institutes Mangrove Action Plan newsletter;


On the first day of the conference, I heard the WWF representative, Aaron A. McNevin, PhD., Aquaculture Specialist (his title) speak during a session on setting standards for fish certification being used by the Marine Stewardship Council. McNevin was involved in this session, along with the CEO of MSC, Rupert Howes of the UK, who is thrilled because Wal-Mart has signalled they will abide by MSC wild shrimp certification in just three years.
This will probably coincide with Wal-Mart's earlier stated plans for certification of their farmed shrimp which we are opposing. (This Wal-Mart entry into the MSC certification process was the talk of the conference, with the conference presenters from MSC, WWF, Seafood Choices, etc. really happy with the "big" news, stating that this is a major breakthrough in the realm of the MSC and its growing influence over wild marine fisheries catch because Wal-Mart is the world's largest retail store.)

Certification is being used as a prerequite and as a road into the forest basically.
The presursor to destruction.
And it will co-op the shallower but well meaning among us to join in.
Especially when the set-up funding is shared.

Soon everything will enjoy a certified label, sticker or wall certifcate... Everyone except the more environmentally friendly businesses which will not be able to compete when the worst offenders get certified as clean, sustainable and responsible.
This will remove incentives to do the right thing and create battle weary, jaded people of good will. It will teach them to give up and stop caring along with the rest of the world.
It will teach them to relax and become absorbed.
The aquarium trade is targeted for the same treatment as we all know.

Are things becoming clearer now?
Steve

 

[Meloco14]

Wow, how sad. Thanks for the info.

 

[clarionreef]

Check it out;
This development is the most ominous thing I've seen in awhile.
The WWF and the Marine Stewardship Council, are pushing and promoting massive scale and grossly unsustainable shrimp farming in the tropical desert that Southern Thailand is becoming .
The prize for the Marine Stewardship Council is that Walmart has signed the letter of commitment to become ...er... certified....
The be validated by so big a player is considered a coup for them.

Is it just me... or doesn't this seem to run against the grain of what environmental groups are supposed to do?
And aren't the similarities and the procedures with our own industry group a little too close to this syndrome?
Certifying the bigger players first regardless of the sustainability picture [ ..cough... Clarin and Batasan]suggests a plan in lockstep with the same machine?
Is there someone who imagines this enlightened policy?
What happened to the good guys?

Steve

 

[Meloco14]

This is ridiculous. As a regular consumer trying to be environmentally conscious I would believe certifications to be a good thing, and would support them. It's scary how different the reality actually is. I'm sure there are millions of people out there who would support a certified product believing they are being environmentally conscious. It really saddens and upsets me to know that so-called environmental groups are as corrupt and capitalistic as any other big business and industry. I am only 23 years old. I am scared to see what the oceans will be like when i'm in my 40's and 50's. So sad.

 

[PeterIMA]

I had the opportunity to visit Belize last year, and witnessed massive shrimp farms from the air. Most of the ponds are over 40 acres each. I met with the Minister of Fisheries Mike Espat. He complained that the shrimp farms do not create many jobs. There are only about 700 people employed in shrimp farming in Belize. He also complained that the shrimp heads being disposed of near the mangroves had become a significant coastal pollution problem.

For the past two years, I worked with an American shrimp company (Versaggi Shrimp Corporation in Tampa FL) with the development of an electronic logbook by which the captains recorded their catches and effort along with environmental data from a data logger on each boat. We were able to model and map pink shimp distributions on the West Florida Shelf for a 16 month period.

Unfortunately, as my research project came to a close the shrimp company tied up its boats and ceased fishing in the Gulf of Mexico. The reasons: 1) They could not compete against low prices of cheap imported shrimp, and 2) Rising fuel costs meant it cost more to catch the shrimp than they could obtain from their sale. So American shrimp fishermen are unemployed, while Walmart contributes to the destruction of mangroves in Thailand and Malaysia.

My prediction is that these shrimp farms in SE Asia will become unproductive like they did in the Philippines. So, don't expect shrimp to stay cheap for too long.

Peter Rubec

 

[clarionreef]

MY BUT THE COLLATERAL DAMAGE IN THE MEANWHILE and loss of mature mangrove habitat and its productivity will remain for many decades.
The question is pointed;
How can this activity be verified as bonafide and certified by the Marine Stewardship Council?

It surely cheapens what the entire concept now means ...not to mention the credibility of the eco-labeling movement.
Will these shrimp be served in the Monterey Bay Aquarium and appear on the food choices guide I wonder?
And if they certified the Thai disaster...what wouldn't they certify?
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

anyone can invent any type of 'certification' hokum pokum

just because anything is advertised as meeting certification, doesn't mean squat, without knowing exactly what the certification really means, and who is really doing the certification


e.g.- i can form an organization and call it the living reef foundation, and market products as being certified by the living reef foundation, meeting all of the environmental requirements of said foundation

(both the requirements, and the foundation, don't really exist )


this was the main hole in jameso's arguments comparing mac certification to iso certs type stuff



mac basically invented the certifications, the requirements, and setup certification bodies that were not really doing their jobs anyway

(the fox running the chicken coop scenario )

(i've tried to contact afew of them, (those listed on thev mac site) in the past, to find out what their own actual standards and practices are, and got no reply, when i was involved with corl)

 

[clarionreef]

The very definition of certification says this kind of thing cannot happen as certification was to be the quintessential verification of truth.
Truth in sustainable practice, truth in quality, truth in every strp of the chain of custody.
Plenty of people believed this as a need to believe in something.
The Marine Stewardship Council is the forerunner to MAC and much bigger.
It shares the same funding stream as well.
It sold out in public and gleefully and touted snagging the letter of commitment from Walmart as a wonderful day.
Now shrimp prices will go down....driving competitors prices down...hardening the profit making process out on the mangrove coasts and driving the amount of mangrove habitat down to zilch..
The pressure for competing shrimp chains to survive will accelerate the shrimp wars and cut down mangroves as routine.
By definition of certification in sustainable practices...this could not happen.
By definition, the living, breathing cyanide trade could not get certified either.

Steve
.

 

[Meloco14]

I hate how money and politics ruins well intentioned certifications like this. It's like the "dolphin safe" tuna certification that isn't really dolphin safe. Just goes to show you really need to research things to find the truth, and you can't believe anything you hear anymore.

 

[Anonymous]

'anymore' ?




(that's always been the case- why else is 'caveat emptor' so well known, even among those not educated in latin ? )

 

[clarionreef]

Me Loco,
Its OK,
The wrong road to good intentions is increasingly being paved w/ certified materials and its not uncommon to meet friends traveling the wrong way.
With the passage of time, few may remember where the sign was originally pointed. For this reason, we require the prospective of history 'cause the new kids are so easily turned around.
Its no sin to be fooled. This is America and selling everything is what we do.
We are a sales tribe. We get so much stuff from Walmart...why not our moral compass on the environment, trade fairness and ethical behavior as well? 8O
Selling absolution to the worst offenders has long been the genius of our cultures most famous...and wealthiest defense lawyers and public relations firms.
It was only a matter of time before they got to the can't beat em...join em environmental wing....and re-made them in their own image. Steve

 

[PeterIMA]

ENN FULL STORY
New Shrimp Farm Rules Aim to Save Asian Mangroves

August 23, 2006 — By Clarence Fernandez, Reuters
KUALA LUMPUR — Environmental regulation of shrimp farming operations across Asia takes a major step forward next month, when the U.N. food agency considers adoption of a set of tougher industry guidelines published on Tuesday.

The key victims of Asia's shrimp farms are its mangrove forests, the stilt-like luxuriant root systems of which form a natural protective barrier against destructive waves, prompting many countries to plant them after the 2004 tsunami.

Environmental devastation wreaked by shrimp farms across the region has driven policymakers to hammer out a strategy which aims to save natural resources and protect livelihoods, experts meeting in the Malaysian capital said.

Asia generates about 75 percent of total world production of farmed shrimp, which stood at 1.6 million tonnes in 2003 and was worth nearly $9 billion, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates.

As demand for shrimp grows worldwide, concern over the sustainability of fish stocks has risen, forcing consumers and retailers to demand that the food meets environmental guidelines.

"It's ridiculous to think that a multi-billion-dollar industry can be stopped," said environmentalist Ben Brown, who works for the Mangrove Action Project in Indonesia.

"But the aquaculture industry is very far from adhering to best practices. It's still very much a get-in-quick, do-it-dirty approach, and it causes a lot of havoc."

Policymakers have found it hard to reconcile different environmental yardsticks, spurring a group of United Nations agencies and the World Bank to join hands in thrashing out the new, simpler prescription for the industry.

"There are too many environmental guidelines out there -- there's confusion among governments and investors about which ones to follow," said Koji Yamamoto, a researcher with the Network of Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA).

NACA, which groups 17 nations from India and China to Australia and North Korea, published the set of eight principles for responsible shrimp farming, which an FAO panel is due to weigh and consider adopting at a meeting in September.

Once adopted by the FAO, the guidelines would be incorporated in the national shrimp farming policies of different governments, Yamamoto added. NACA's 17 members have already signed off on the guidelines.

The rules address issues ranging from farm location, design and construction to questions of shrimp feeding, health and nutrition, as well as food safety issues and concerns over sharing the farm's benefits with surrounding communities.

Stricter regulation is crucial because governments often overlook the true environmental costs of shrimp farms, which destroy mangroves, and rip up the livelihoods of poor coastal communities, researchers and economists said.

"There is no incentive to take account of mangrove costs, because they are not felt as losses to the private producers, but to the wider economy," said Lucy Emerton, an environmental economist with the World Conservation Union, IUCN.

Clearance for shrimp ponds accounted for 20 to 50 percent of mangrove clearances, Emerton said, noting that over the last 20 years shrimp aquaculture had grown by 400 percent while mangrove forest areas had shrunk by 26 percent.

"In Asia, the average intensive shrimp farm survives only two to five years before serious pollution and disease problems cause early closures," said Brown, adding that 99 percent of mangroves in some parts of East Java had been lost to shrimp farming.

Polluted soils left by unprofitable shrimp farms often needed to be treated for a very long time to be rejuvenated, he said.

Source: Reuters

 

[clarionreef]

By definition of certification in sustainable practices...this could not happen.
Quite a few in our own debates on the search for better remedies believed this..

When its another industry, especially the shrimp farming one, we would hardly regard a certification as credible.
In fact, since its now coming to light how incredibly destructive it is, earlier radicals on the issue now appear in retrospect to be more thoughtful and rational.
Alas....its easier to see the speck in another eye then the beam in our own.
J.C. [circa 2030 A.D.]
Steve

 

[Anonymous]

What impact, if any, has a MO fish rearing facility? Are there any studies done prior to starting a project like this? Something like an ecological impact review or something similar?

I'm not trying to discredit anything :roll: , just want to know if measures are taken so we don't end up doing the same thing shrimp farms are responsible of (even if in a smaller scale) while trying to make things better. Thanks.

Jorge

 

[clarionreef]

Jorge,
Mt point is the lowering of the credibility of the term certification.
The shrimp farms have made a mockery of it and shown how certification is a product/service for sale...like any other.
Coral farms are simply a dab of deodorant for MAC as it tries to redefine its mission to something simple and popular instead of the original mission of ending the cyanide trade and enabling a rebirth in the unsustainable sectors of the fish trade.
Steve
ps. Kinda like failing to save the wild clown loach and latching onto the guppy farms as a eco-substitute. This works with naive funders....just not with simple fish people like us.

 

[dizzy]

In that same train of thought I found this: http://www.activistcash.com/news_detail.cfm?hid=1619



Oh… you meant that organic food…
From ConsumerFreedom.com
Oct 14, 2002

One week from today, the USDA’s new organic-food labeling requirements go into effect. As we approach “O-day,” the same self-anointed environmental saviors who agitated the loudest for the new regulations are whining that they will hold advantages for the “wrong” products.


The Los Angeles Times reports today that the organic food industry “has become a big farmer’s game” and quotes a local organic farmer’s complaint that “the movement has been adopted by big-ticket commerce.” Up the road in San Francisco, the Chronicle characterized organic growers yesterday as “the foes of large agriculture businesses,” and gave another activist a soap box to grumble that “corporations are going to walk away with the whole organic name we created.”



Why this hostility? Didn’t the organic food movement want to convert the masses? A clue comes from organic-only food zealot Joan Dye Gussow in a separate San Francisco Chronicle Sunday feature. “This isn’t what we meant,” carps Gussow. “When we said organic we meant local. We meant healthful. We meant being true to the ecologies of regions. We meant mutually respectful growers and eaters. We meant social justice and equality.”



Gussow, by the way, is an “overseer” of the Chefs Collaborative and sits on the advisory board of the misnamed Center for Food Safety. She is also a director of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, a $75 million philanthropy that doles out money to anti-consumer activist groups like the Tides Center, the Western Organization of Resource Councils, and the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.



For a complete archive of past headlines visit the Center for Consumer Freedom at www.ConsumerFreedom.com


Be careful what you wish for.

 

[clarionreef]

Egads!
The parrallels are so similar to our own industrys organic produce issues.

The Los Angeles Times reports today that the organic food industry “has become a big farmer’s game” and quotes a local organic farmer’s complaint that “the movement has been adopted by big-ticket commerce.”
Wow...where have we seen that before?

Why this hostility?
Didn’t the organic food movement want to convert the masses? A clue comes from organic-only food zealot Joan Dye Gussow in a separate San Francisco Chronicle Sunday feature. “This isn’t what we meant,” carps Gussow. “When we said organic we meant local. We meant healthful. We meant being true to the ecologies of regions. We meant mutually respectful growers and eaters. We meant social justice and equality.”

I think Dizzys post is a stunner as it explains the hostility that occurs when a brand name is stolen from its inventors when it becomes popular enough to do so.
In conventional business, Col. Sanders or Ocean Nutrition companies will sell their discoveries and get paid.... Then their names are used, non compete contracts signed and the product cheapened and mainstream marketed....
In the general category of reform progress...all ya gotta do is jump to the head of the line, elbow out the small scale reformers and pitch the newly discovered brand name to the big boys in need of image make-overs. Then you run with a watered down product produced from people w/ no previous reform history.
It actually happened that way. Only problem is, when the image improvement deal is frontloaded, the need to follow thru on substance is neglected.
Steve