The Sustainability Of Shrimp Aquaculture

The world aquaculture production has been increasing rapidly in the last decades, approximately 10-15% per year depending on the reference sources. As experience with aquaculture grows worldwide, the concept of sustainable aquaculture is increasingly recognized to incorporate both spatial and temporal dimensions of environmental, economic, and social parameters. Attracted by the demand for shrimp products in the developed countries, especially the U.S.A., Europe, and Japan, shrimp aquaculture has expanded rapidly, mainly in the subtropical and tropical lowlands of Asia and America, with the contributions to the earning of foreign exchange earning export sector, stimulation of backward and forward-linked sectors, creation of formal sector jobs, inflow of foreign direct investment and technological transfer as well as the food security and poverty alleviation in the developing countries which are conducting shrimp aquaculture. To date, approximately 1-1.5 million ha of coastal lowlands have been converted into shrimp ponds, comprising mainly slat flats, mangrove areas, marshes, and agricultural lands.However, shrimp aquaculture raises technical, economic, social, legal and institutional issues because it is an activity that impinges on natural resources and matters, and depends on the social, economic, and institutional supports. Shrimp aquaculture relies on the provision of seeds and causes some adverse impacts by the breakout of shrimp diseases, which puts forward the main challenges for technology of shrimp aquaculture and related researches. The shrimp aquaculture interacts with the environment, being dependent on land, water and aquatic species, and causing environmental problems. With the rapid growth of shrimp aquaculture, some groups of people have been increasingly margined by the enclosure of some lands, especially around the coastal areas. With the wider consensus of the concept of sustainable development worldwide after the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), the strategy of sustainable development has been incorporated into national development programs globally. However, the above issues emerging in the shrimp aquaculture industry makes contributions to the query whether this industry is sustainable.