Let Them Eat Shrimp The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of t
What’s the connection between a platter of jumbo shrimp at your local restaurant and murdered fishermen in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America’s Gulf coast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard of these salt
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Let Them Eat Shrimp The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea
Kennedy Warne
/ Shearwater Books Washington | Covelo | London
A Shearwater Book Published by Island Press Copyright © 2011 Kennedy Warne All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 1718 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20009. SHEARWATER BOOKS is a trademark of The Center for Resource Economics. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Warne, K. P. Let them eat shrimp : the tragic disappearance of the rainforests of the sea / Kennedy Warne. p. cm. “A Shearwater Book.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-1-59726-683-3 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 1-59726-683-3 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Mangrove forests. 2. Mangrove ecology. 3. Deforestation. 4. Mangrove restoration. I. Title. QK938.M27.L47 2011 578.769'8--dc22 2010043183 British Cataloguing-in-Publication data available. Printed on recycled, acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Keywords: Mangroves, shrimp farming, aquaculture, wetlands, coastal development, storm barrier, marine ecosystem, environmental justice, Sundarbans, Tambillo, conchera.
The margins, on which the poorest and most mobile had managed to subsist, by taking advantage of the tolerance, negligence, forgotten rules or unquestioned facts, disappear. —Michel Foucault, La Societé Punitive
When I would recreate myself, I seek the darkest wood, the thickest and most interminable and, to the citizen, most dismal swamp. I enter a swamp as a sacred place,—a sanctum sanctorum. There is the strength, the marrow of Nature. —Henry David Thoreau, Walking
My heart belongs in the marshlands. —Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides
Contents Preface Introduction
xi xiv
Chapter 1
Tigers in the Aisles
Chapter 2
Paradise Lost
17
Chapter 3
Pink Gold and a Blue Revolution
29
Chapter 4
The Old Man and the Mud Crab
38
Chapter 5
The Cockle Gatherers of Tambillo
44
Chapter 6
A Just Fight
55
Chapter 7
Bimini Twist
66
Chapter 8
Candy and the Magic Forest
79
Chapter 9
The Carbon Sleuth
94
Chapter 10
Paradise Regained
107
Chapter 11
The Road to Manzanar
121
Chapter 12
Under the Mango Tree
127
Chapter 13
A City and Its Mangroves
137
Chapter 14
A Mangrove’s Worth
149
Author’s Note
157
Further Reading
161
Index
163
3
Preface
T
he crab collector squeezes through a tangled palisade of mangrove roots, lies on his belly, and stretches his arm fulllength into the sloppy mud. With a grunt of satisfaction he draws out a mud crab that is broader than the span of his hand. Thumb-sized claws wave aggressively as he pushes the crab into a mesh bag that is already bulging with others. He works his way along the shoreline, navigating the maze of roots that arch down from the mangrove trunks like umbrella ribs. He feels at home in these muddy thickets. This is hi
