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V. POLICY AND INSTITUTIONAL DETERMINANTS
While recent expansion of commercial shrimp aquaculture has brought benefits to some
social groups, many others have been prejudiced. Moreover, the well-being of unborn
generations has probably been negatively affected in several places by the degradation of
the natural environment. This is similar to what happened earlier in other lucrative
export-oriented commodity production systems. The rapid recent expansion of shrimp farming
and its differential social and environmental impacts have been largely determined by
commercial interests, policies and institutions at sub-national, national and
international levels. In this section, we review a few of the socio-economic and political
processes and relationships that appear to have been most prominent in determining the
industry's growth and its consequences. Many of the issues raised in this report would
apply to other luxury-oriented branches of aquaculture (Kane, 1993). We also examine a few
attempts of reforms aimed at diminishing social and environmental damage.
Market Forces
The immediate stimulus for the expansion of commercial shrimp farming in
the 1980s was the rapidly growing demand for shrimp in high-income countries. This
occurred at the same time that capture of wild ocean shrimp was becoming more expensive
and erratic, due in part to over-fishing and the degradation of many natural shrimp
habitats. With rising prices for shrimp, it became profitable to develop new
capital-intensive "blue revolution" technologies in order to increase
dramatically the yields from shrimp farms. Shrimp processors, importers and input
manufacturers have positioned themselves to take advantage of growing demands of consumers
and producers. As was seen above, many of these enterprises became large-scale industries
with excess capacities and with ologopolistic influence over markets
These large shrimp enterprises in turn promoted further increases in
consumer demand and in production in order to maintain or increase their profits. For
example, the sushi restaurant and catering industry in Japan is a multi-billion yen
enterprise. The high value of the yen makes Japan a particularly attractive market for
frozen shrimp imports. The sushi industry promotes consumer preferences to
"eat out, to eat fast and to eat fat-free" (Mizuno Yu, 1987). Sushi
enterprises are now also expanding rapidly in the United States.
Production of farm-raised shrimp worldwide increased from an estimated
mere 84,000 tons in 1982 to over 700,000 tons in 1994. Effective demand is projected to
continue to increase during the second half of the 1990s, although at a slower rate. In
1994 there were an estimated 1,147,000 hectares of shrimp farms in production worldwide,
of which over 85 per cent were in East and South Asia. Farmed shrimp production during the
coming decade is likely to continue to expand both by incorporating new areas into ponds
and from more intensive technologies. Because of the short life-span of intensive shrimp
ponds, abandonment of polluted ponds will tend to augment the areas affected by shrimp
farming even more rapidly than increases in production might suggest.[32]
Market forces at the national level stimulate shrimp aquaculture
disproportionately in relation to fin-fish aquaculture, in part because the former brings
in much more foreign exchange. Lower income domestic fish consumers cannot compete in
world markets with high-income consumers of shrimp. This induces governments to encourage
and subsidize shrimp production disproportionately in relation to fin-fish aquaculture for
domestic consumption. Both the state and its most influential wealthier support groups
covet foreign exchange for imports of consumer goods, capital goods and industrial inputs
as well as for debt servicing and capital flight towards secure investments abroad.
Similarly, the diversion of less marketable fish and cereals from human consumption to
shrimp feed is profitable even when large portions of national populations lack sufficient
protein. Limited and usually highly subsidized industrial energy is also channelled into
shrimp production and processing because this is more profitable for those controlling it
than are most other uses — such as the production of staple food.
At local levels, shrimp farming is often more lucrative for élite groups
controlling natural resources and political power than are traditional, mainly
self-provisioning systems. The landless and near landless have little economic or
political influence to prevent alienation of their traditional life support systems.
Moreover, invariably some members of these vulnerable groups can be co-opted into
supporting the expansion of shrimp farming by sharing with them a few crumbs of the
benefits. This often makes local level resistance highly divisive and difficult.
A big worry of many large shrimp producers and related enterprises is that
supply may increase more rapidly than demand, leading to depressed prices and ultimately
to bankruptcy (Maw Cheng Yang, in Rosenberry, 1993:34).[33]
Of course, maintaining high shrimp prices will only contribute to improving social and
environmental impacts of shrimp farming if profits are used to internalize social and
environmental costs. As was seen earlier, some members of the industry urge
self-discipline in production increases in order to stabilize prices. As with other
commodities where production is partly dependent on the decisions of numerous producers,
and freedom of entry by new producers is not prohibitively expensive, effective
self-regulation of production by the industry is practically an impossible task. Nor can
it be done effectively by the national state in a single producing country. There are
already numerous competing producers in other countries and many more countries could
potentially enter the industry. International co-operation among shrimp exporting
countries in order to regulate exports and stabilize prices would be desirable from the
viewpoint of many large producers. Experience with other commodities, however, suggests
that cartels of commodity producers, even when supported by their national governments,
have almost invariably been ineffective in the medium term if they did not have the
co-operation of the principal consumer countries as well. Even then, they have usually
eventually broken down (Barraclough, 1991).
The problems for the industry in controlling production and prices are
paralleled by those of setting standards to minimize negative environmental and social
impacts that could easily make shrimp farming non-viable over a period of several years.
No matter how concerned the industry's leaders become about these problems, there is
little they can do by themselves to mitigate them even when technical and political
solutions seem to be clearly available. Competition among producers would obviate their
application unless there were enforceable standards and incentives. Present trends suggest
that without effective international standards the industry will flourish and then
partially collapse in country after country, as it has already done in Taiwan Province of
China and, more recently, in China, leaving behind a degraded environment (numerous
abandoned ponds, etc.) and many ruined livelihoods. As long as there is sufficient demand,
however, the transnational shrimp business will attempt to expand. Present trends indicate
that shrimp farming will spread rapidly to other low-income countries of Asia, South
America and Africa to take advantage of pristine coastal areas, lower labour costs and
less stringent regulations (Skladany, 1992:35).
The industry has shown considerable concern about quality standards and
the promotion of improved management practices and technologies, since failure in these
areas could lead to huge losses throughout the whole industry from producer to retailer. A
few deaths or illnesses from contaminated shrimp in importing countries, for example,
could be catastrophic for sales if they were publicized by the mass media. While consumers
might simply shift from shrimp to another apparently "cleaner" product, the
hardest hit would be the shrimp farmers. On the other hand, thousands of deaths and
injuries in a poor producing country caused by floods that were worsened by mangrove
destruction resulting from shrimp pond construction may have little immediate negative
consequences for the industry's global profits.
For any industry, self-regulation to deal effectively with clear and
certain threats to short-term profits is much more feasible than dealing with diffuse
threats to its longer term survival. In order to internalize some of the environmental and
social costs and shape policies to prevent or mitigate these costs which cannot be
internalized, enforceable, international standards dealing with the shrimp industry's
externalities are necessary. This paper cannot specify what such standards should be, as
this implies some degree of agreement among the principal social actors about numerous
contentious political and technical issues. This literature review, however, brings out
the urgent need for all concerned parties to begin discussions leading to the evolution of
such international standards. The following discussion on policies and institutions may
help by suggesting some criteria as well as highlighting several problems that will have
to be overcome.
Policies and Institutions
Market forces and their effects are social products subject to social
control. They are not handed down from on high by some divine edict. Policy implies a
conscious course of conduct by any particular social actor in respect to certain issues in
order to advance towards perceived objectives. Public policy refers to lines of
governmental action, often but not necessarily at the level of the nation state. Policy
has much more to do with purposeful courses of action than with rhetoric.
Institutions, on the other hand, are bundles of rules and regulations
governing social relations established by custom or accepted law that structure behaviour
in fairly predictable ways. Institutions are sub-sets of social relations that correspond
with settled habits of thought and action. Policies tend to be issue oriented and volatile
while institutions are more stable and difficult to change. Institutions can be extremely
resistant to policies designed to reform them and can persist for long periods even in the
absence of policies. Institutions may often be policy focused, and after a policy has
become generally accepted it may become institutionalized.
Viewed in this light, the complex interactions among policies and
institutions largely determine social behaviour in any given ecological and socio-economic
context. This is why we conclude this review of the literature about Asian shrimp farm
expansion by looking at several policy and institutional issues.
Policies in countries importing farmed shrimp can be crucial for the
industry. These usually take the form of setting sanitary and other quality standards.
Consumers in high income countries constitute a potentially very powerful interest group.
A shift in consumption patterns might overwhelm the policies of producers, investors,
processors and retailers. Consumer preferences not only affect demand, but also the
policies of shrimp importing countries.
The policies of investors and entrepreneurs in the shrimp industry are
primarily directed at facilitating investments and increasing profits. Those of affected
peasant producers and artisanal fisherfolk are usually aimed at maintaining and improving
their livelihoods while at the same time minimizing risks. Public policies, however, are
always more complex. Every political system is in part an arena for attempting to resolve
conflicting interests. Public policies are therefore inevitably to some degree
contradictory.
Public policies in Asian farmed shrimp exporting countries have frequently
been designed to promote the expansion of commercial shrimp farming, as it can be highly
remunerative for several of the state's influential support groups. At the same time,
policies may be adopted in response to concerns of other support groups to mitigate the
negative social and environmental impacts of shrimp farming. The priority given to these
often conflicting objectives in shrimp producing countries largely depends on the relative
strength of the different social actors in determining public courses of action. The state
usually has policies designed to placate groups with conflicting interests. In most
situations support groups that benefit from expansion of commercial shrimp farming seem to
be much more influential in shaping public policies than are those groups that would be
prejudiced.
The remainder of this section briefly looks at four overlapping public
policy approaches to directing the shrimp industry towards social goals and especially to
minimize its social and ecological damages. These are regulatory legislation; economic
incentives and disincentives; environmental (and social) impact assessments and,
benefit-cost analyses. Several institutional constraints are also mentioned. These four
approaches are essentially complementary, although they are often discussed as if one
could be substituted for another.
Regulatory legislation
A recent comparative study of legislation regulating shrimp farming
concluded that:
... most countries relied on preventive measures to avoid harm and reduce
or eliminate risk of harm caused by aquaculture. They include (i) setting of standards,
(ii) restrictions and prohibitions, (iii) licensing, and (iv) environmental impact
assessment (...) Little attention is given to the various economic incentives and
disincentives which are likely to affect conduct towards the environment and could induce
changes in behaviour or produce revenues to finance aquaculture environment policy
programmes (van Houtte, 1994:15; see also FAO/NACA, 1994g).
This same comparative review indicated that few countries had legal
provisions for compensation to aquaculturists damaged by pollution from other sources.
Practically none envisioned compensation to third parties negatively affected by
externalities arising from shrimp farming.
In the literature reviewed, discussion of policy issues concentrated
mostly on the declared aims of national legislation regulating shrimp farming. The
policies pursued by sub-national political units or by international bodies received
little attention. Policies of non-governmental organizations, corporate enterprises, or of
popular organizations such as labour unions, co-operatives and traditional communities
were seldom mentioned. This can partially be explained by the fact that contributors to
these documents seem to equate policy with the stated intentions of national laws,
regulations and programmes. They seldom dealt with institutional constraints that
frequently distorted the outcomes of legal regulations even when serious attempts were
made to apply them. They often failed to distinguish between purposeful courses of action
and official declarations of intent, although several reports mentioned that shrimp farms
had frequently been installed illegally (Quarto, 1995; Das, 1995). Also, much more is
known about the content and declared objectives of national laws and regulations than
about what actually happens concerning their implementation.
National legislation designed to regulate shrimp aquaculture received the
most attention. Nearly every country producing farmed shrimp seems to be in the process of
designing regulations to protect aquaculture from pollution from other sources such as
industry, agriculture and urban sewage. Many also have general legislation concerning
environmental protection and natural resource use, that, if applied, could contribute to
control the pollution and other damage generated by shrimp aquaculture. India, for
instance, at the federal level, has several laws of this type such as: the Water
(Pollution, Control and Prevention) Act of 1974 (as amended), the Environmental
(Protection) Act of 1986 and the related Coastal Zone Regulation of 1991, the Forest
Conservation Act of 1980 (as amended), as well as the normal revenue law which prohibits
obstruction of rivers, natural water flow channels by any authority or person (Das, 1995).[34] The emphasis in national legal codes has generally
been on technical standards concerning discharges of pollutants (Barg, 1992; van Houtte,
1994).
As was seen in section IV, in several countries there is legislation
requiring that mangroves and croplands be conserved and that local communities retain
access to the sea. Villagers in Tamil Nadu protested against installed shrimp farms [35] which prevented their traditional access to the sea.
They obtained a ruling from the Supreme Court requesting scientists from the National
Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) to report on the situation. Following
this scientists' report, the Supreme Court issued an order prohibiting the further
conversion of agricultural land or salt pans into prawn farms in the three Indian states
of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Pondicherry (Multinational Monitor, 1995; Khor,
1995). Several countries have legal stipulations that commercial shrimp aquaculturists
above a minimum size obtain government licences, and that ponds be located within certain
distances from high or low tidal levels. A few countries such as Malaysia, Sri Lanka and
Indonesia require that environmental impact assessments be carried out before official
permission to construct is granted, but there is little information about the quality of
these assessments or about the extent they influence investment and management decisions
(NACA, 1994a; FAO-NACA, 1994a and 1994f).
There seems to be little analysis of how well laws regulating shrimp
farming are implemented or how appropriate they are for different social and ecological
contexts within each country. One finds frequent mention of conflicting jurisdictions by
different state agencies, of contradictory objectives, of inadequate implementation
mechanisms and of lack of adequate monitoring. In several countries, such as Malaysia and
India, state governments have wide powers over the exploitation of natural resources
leading to many unresolved legal conflicts between federal and state authorities. A few of
these conflicts were mentioned in section IV. There appear to have been few critical
analyses concerning the consequences of laws regulating aquaculture on local communities
and different social groups within them.
Property rights in general and especially land-and-water tenure systems
are key institutions determining the incidence of benefits and damages arising from shrimp
farming. Property rights imply the customary and legal rules that govern access to and use
of a resource, and the rights to future streams of benefits arising from it, among
individuals, social groups, corporate entities, the state and other collectivities. A
common problem, as was seen earlier, is that customary rights to aquatic resources are
often in conflict with newly imposed ones. In any case, property relations vary widely
from one situation to another. For example, in Thailand, most (80 per cent) shrimp farms
belong to independent operators owning and cultivating an average of 0.16 to 1.6 hectares
pond surface (Lin, 1995). In India and Bangladesh, on the other hand, large private or
corporate farms predominate in many areas. These commercial enterprises may include
several hundred hectares that are alienated from customary, communal or private uses.
Furthermore, even the legal rights of private owners are often overridden with the help of
state intervention.
In most coastal areas where commercial shrimp farming has recently been
expanding, the rights to land and water are not clear. Traditional rules specifying the
rights of diverse social groups in the use of these resources were often well established
by custom and sanctioned by political authorities. With the expansion of commodity
production, however, the state has usually supported the imposition of property régimes
encoded in national legislation that extinguish or subordinate the rights of customary
self-provisioning users of land, water and forests that are appropriated for commercial
production systems such as shrimp farming. Frequently, land and water resources that were
customarily managed as common property by local user groups were legally decreed to be
public property owned by the state. The state in turn sold or leased them to private
entrepreneurs or investors. The shrimp pond owner, lessee or concession holder was then
able to exclude customary users who seldom had legal rights to compensation for their
loss. Moreover, the shrimp producers were seldom held responsible in practice for damage
they caused to others through pollution, salinization, mangrove destruction and the like.
Even in the few countries where national laws theoretically permitted redress by damaged
parties, legal costs, social barriers, threats of reprisals and other obstacles simply
appeared too formidable for peasants and fisherfolks to consider demanding compensation,
or the restoration of their customary rights.
The inherent bias against customary users of coastal land and aquatic
resources is reflected in FAO's definition of aquaculture. This includes the statement
"(Fish) farming also implies individual or corporate ownership of the stock
being cultivated" (van Houtte, 1994:12). This neglects both the complexity of the
concept of "ownership" and the fact that in many common property régimes
"farming" has proved to be rather effective and efficient in meeting local
livelihood needs. An individual or a corporation cannot very easily own a fish or shrimp
that swims in communal waters, as unlike cattle on communal land it is not feasible to
brand them. Dispersal of eggs in communal waters is a common practice in fish breeding
that does not imply either individual or corporate rights to ownership, although communal
ownership is possible to the extent outsiders are excluded. Moreover, this FAO definition
presents other difficulties from a strictly legal point of view (van Houtte, 1994; New and
Crispoldi-Hotta, 1992).
Thailand provides a good example of the regulatory legislative approach.
It has recently adopted legislation that has laudable intentions but that will be very
difficult to enforce. Its provisions include requirements that all shrimp farms must
register with the government, and those above eight hectares need government approval
before construction. Farms are required to have reservoirs for water replenishment which
occupy at least 30 per cent of their total area and should use sediment ponds that contain
molluscs or seaweed.[36] Also, farms should dispose of
sediments on land and not release them into public waterways (Rosenberry, 1994b). This
legislation falls far short of the recommendations of the NACA country report for Thailand
that called for limiting production to 200,000 metric tons from 80,000 hectares of farms
(both of these limits had already been exceeded in 1994) (NACA, 1994b:16). All of the
measures that were adopted, however, address serious problems that could negatively affect
the profitability of the shrimp industry in the immediate future. Nonetheless, obtaining
compliance will be far from easy as some short-term profits of individual producers would
have to be sacrificed in order to improve the profitability of the industry as a whole.
Moreover, there would have to be standards for other sectors of the industry.
If the requirement of prior government approval for shrimp farm
construction could be interpreted to mean that there would have to be critical social and
environmental impact assessments and that the industry would have either to foreclose its
exploitation or to bear the costs of its social and environmental damages — that are
now borne by other social groups — this new legislation in Thailand could be an
important step. It is, however, unlikely that the government of Thailand alone has the
clout to impose such equitable policies.
There are frequent references in the literature to the need for
comprehensive land- and water-use planning of a country's coastal and wetland areas
(FAO-NACA, 1994a-h; NACA, 1994a-b). Zoning is often mentioned as a suitable instrument for
implementing such plans. Zoning could be supported by economic incentives and penalties
such as taxes designed to reward those who comply and penalize those who do not.[37] This discourse implies national plans, presumably
designed by well meaning technocrats in collaboration with national political leaders.
There seems to be little recognition that experience elsewhere and with other issues
suggests that zoning and land use planning have been most effective where they have been
designed and carried out with the broad organized participation of the local groups most
affected. Of course, there also would have to be a supportive national policy and an
institutional framework that recognizes the rights of customary national resource users,
and of unborn generations, to sustainable livelihoods and a productive clean environment.
The issue of centralization versus decentralization of coastal area
planning and controls is to a large extent a false dilemma. Many problems can best be
dealt with locally by the people most concerned, but effectively dealing with problems
associated with commodities that enter national and international trade implies the need
for a broader enabling public policy and institutional framework. Numerous problems, such
as quality standards, the legal system, tax, environmental and labour codes and the like
require national and international norms. The rule of thumb should be to provide as much
scope as possible for local level popular participation[38].
Where local power structures are dominated by small élite groups, popular participation
will only be feasible if the basic rights of the hitherto powerless are protected by a
state that is somehow accountable to even its poorest citizens.
Economic incentives and disincentives
A serious problem with the regulatory legislative approach is that laws
can often be easily disregarded by powerful social actors that they were designed to
regulate. Moreover, in most places local communities, and especially vulnerable social
groups in such communities, do not have an active participatory role in formulating and
implementing public policies. These groups are largely ignored in environmental impact
assessments, in determining the construction, location and densities of shrimp ponds, in
regulating shrimp farm activities or in having rights to adequate compensation for
degraded environments and lost access to natural resources. There seem to be no provisions
ensuring that communities benefit through local taxes on shrimp farm assets or profits. As
was seen in earlier sections of this report, this leaves local communities without
possibilities or incentives to co-operate in designing and enforcing regulations aimed at
making shrimp farming more environmentally and socially friendly. At the same time, the
shrimp industry is usually sufficiently powerful politically to shape rules and laws to
suit its own perceived interests, and to evade them if they do not. In this it usually,
but not always, has the co-operation of large landowners and other members of local
élites. As was seen in section IV, both local élites and commercial shrimp farmers
frequently evade regulations designed to diminish the industry's environmental damages.
This has led many analysts to argue that, to the greatest extent possible,
the command and control approach should be replaced by one of economic incentives and
disincentives. A combination of well designed taxes, penalties, credits, trade and price
policies, support services and infrastructure could contribute to promoting aquaculture
that is more environmentally and socially sustainable. Such policy measures, however,
require at least as exacting institutional and policy contexts as does effective
regulation. They can be easily perverted towards other ends if they are not guided by a
very skilfully designed enabling framework and if they do not enjoy solid political
support as well as wide participation of diverse social actors at all levels. In addition,
successful implementation of both the regulatory and incentive approaches require highly
competent and corruption-resistant public officials.
As was seen earlier, most governments and financial agencies provided
economic incentives, such as cheap credits, export promotion, import privileges, tax
breaks and easy access to natural resources, to stimulate the shrimp farm industry's
expansion, but not to internalize its negative externalities. The literature reviewed did
not mention concrete examples of where the economic incentive approach had been used
successfully to minimize social and environmental externalities of shrimp farming
(FAO/NACA, 1994h).
There seems to be little probability that the polluter pays principle will
be widely applied in the near future. This is especially the case where the pollution
involves the loss of livelihoods by politically powerless groups such as poor peasants or
fisherfolk, or unborn generations. Prevention and compensation are both costly, which
means that someone has to sacrifice short-term gains.[39]
The difficulties in implementing such legislation can be readily
appreciated. For example, in 1994 shrimp producers in Thailand were already protesting
taxes on imported feed and other necessary inputs. They argued that unless these taxes
were eliminated, or unless they received rebates, Thailand could no longer compete with
producers in other countries, such as India or Bangladesh, where costs were lower. As a
result, they said, Thailand would soon lose its place as the world's largest shrimp
exporter. Frozen shrimp exports in 1992 were one of the country's most valuable earners of
foreign exchange, rivalling rice which had been the leading agricultural export crop for
many years (Fish Farming International, 1994c). This example illustrates the
fierce opposition generated among commercial shrimp producers by any general application
of the polluter pays principle, or other regulations that would be costly. It also
illustrates the need for international co-operation in order for minimum social and
environmental standards to be accepted by an industry operating in a highly competitive
world market. Failure to accept such norms, however, may mean that the industry cannot be
socially and environmentally sustainable within a few years.
Environmental impact assessments
As mentioned above, several countries now require environmental impact
assessments before permission is granted to install commercial shrimp farms. This raises
four rather fundamental issues:
The first is the conceptual framework of the assessments. What constitutes
environmental degradation and how is it linked with shrimp farming?
The second is the social content of these assessments. Are they merely
concerned with degradation of the natural environment or are the social impacts for
different population strata also included?
The third is the quality of the assessments. How relevant are they
technically and analytically? If they include social issues, are the social actors most
affected actively involved (obviously, unborn generations cannot participate) in carrying
them out?
Finally, what influence do such assessments have over what actually
happens? What effect in practice do the assessments have on investments, the location of
ponds and infrastructure, management practices and on compensation for those who are
prejudiced?
The first question is discussed in some of the environmental literature
(Dasgupta, 1982; Ehrlich and Ehrlich, 1992; Wilson, 1988), but is hardly touched upon in
the publications on shrimp farming. Some regard mangrove destruction, biodiversity loss or
pollution of water and croplands as decisive a priori indicators of environmental
degradation. Others assume that such processes are reversible and treat them as if they
could be evaluated in terms of financial benefits and costs. Almost none of the
publications discuss the more fundamental empirical, ethical and philosophical issues
behind these judgements.
The second question concerning the inclusion of social issues in
environmental impact assessments also seems to be neglected in most recent publications
concerning shrimp farming. While considerable attention is given in the literature to the
importance of environmental impact assessments when undertaking investments in commercial
shrimp farms, there is little recognition of the need to include social issues in such
analyses. An exception was an article a decade ago by the Director of ICLARM. He raised
many of the social issues treated in the present paper and argued for social feasibility
assessments of all aquacultural projects, contending that the concept of social
feasibility should include all aspects of aquaculture that are not strictly technical and
financial (Smith and Pestaño-Smith, 1985). His challenge to the then newly emerging
farmed shrimp industry, and to social scientists observing it, seems to have been largely
ignored, however, as social issues are seldom given much priority in later publications by
national and international agencies dealing with shrimp aquaculture. Even when the
negative social consequences for local people are recognized, this does not seem to
influence the content of programmes designed to promote shrimp farm expansion (Christy et
al., 1988). The present paper, however, suggests that social and environmental issues are
inextricably intertwined.[40]
The third issue of the quality of environmental impact assessments
deserves considerably more attention than it has apparently received. The guidelines
reported in the literature appear rather formal and bureaucratic. Environmental and social
impact assessments, however, should involve a great deal of critical analysis based on
sound data from the natural and social sciences. They have to be adapted to each unique
environmental and social context and to recognize explicitly the many uncertainties
involved. To the maximum extent possible, the social actors who are involved or affected
should be active participants in carrying out these studies and in related planning and
implementation processes. This requires inter-agency co-ordination at all levels as
aquaculture cuts across numerous government agencies (Dickson, 1992:129).
The issue of the practical effects of environmental impact assessments is
perhaps the most important of all. There is little information available about how the
findings of environmental impact assessments influence either public policies or those of
others. This requires further research. Environmental impact assessments that remain in
bureaucratic or academic files are not likely to influence the behaviour of the state or
of other social actors.
Benefit-cost analysis
Proposals for benefit-cost analyses in purely monetary terms dominate the
literature. They are not very convincing, as they seem to ignore political realities.
Moreover, they imply that placing market values on livelihoods of the poor, who are
largely outside the market economy, and on the environment, such as the destruction of
mangroves or the disappearance of plant and animal species, is a meaningful exercise.
Monetary benefit-cost analyses offer technocratic solutions to what are essentially
political issues. In reality, if actual market values are used or inferred, the results of
economic benefit-cost analyses will almost inevitably advance the interests of the
powerful in the present world system to the disadvantage of the people depending more on
local resources and environments and who have little influence over markets, such as poor
peasants or unborn generations. If shadow prices are used to reflect the analyst's views
of the real importance of these groups' interests, however, this is merely another way of
expressing particular value judgements in pseudo-scientific terms (Barraclough and
Ghimire, 1995).
In spite of their many limitations, cost and benefit analyses can be
useful instruments to advance a broader political debate, especially when they involve the
local people who might be prejudiced. For example, at the request of the Supreme Court of
India, the National Environmental and Engineering Research Institute prepared a report in
1995 on the impacts of shrimp aquaculture. According to this report, it has been estimated
that for Andhra Pradesh the industry's annual earnings of 15 billion Rs. caused damages
worth Rs. 63 billion. For Tamil Nadu Rs. 2.8 billion earnings were outweighed by Rs. 4.3
billion in costs (Khor, 1995). Of course, all these estimates can be disputed on technical
grounds, but in the process of debating these estimates underlying political issues often
become clearer to participants.
The implicit assumptions by many environmental economists promoting
benefit-cost analyses in monetary terms as a decisive tool for evaluating the claims of
different social groups competing for the same natural resources seem to be that both
ecosystems and social systems are mere subsystems of the economy. Many ecologists,
historians and social scientists would argue that the reverse is more realistic. They view
society as being a subsystem of an essentially closed global ecosystem and the economy
being a mere subsystem of the broader society.
Implications
If the experiences in China and in Taiwan Province of China are reliable
guides, the rapid expansion of intensive commercial shrimp farming in its present form in
coastal areas of a given country can only be sustained for a couple of decades at most
before diseases associated with self-pollution cause drastic decreases in production. Even
assuming that new technologies are developed to overcome these problems, the industry's
longer term social and ecological sustainability appears to be something of a
contradiction of terms. The social disruption and exclusion of significant populations
caused by the industry's expansion imply that repressive political systems would be
necessary in order for new areas to be continually brought into production. In addition,
the longer term negative environmental impacts would eventually generate strong opposition
among other powerful interest groups, such as those investing in tourism, commercial
agriculture and urbanization. Of course, the farmed shrimp industry is not unique in these
respects. It is doubtful whether "development", as practised in the recent past,
is sustainable indefinitely anywhere on a global scale, but shrimp aquaculture brings out
many of its difficulties in a dramatic way.
Institutional, environmental and policy contexts differ to some extent in
each locality and each country. It is not feasible to prescribe policies or institutional
reforms to be applied everywhere in a mechanical fashion. A general rule is that
governments should be made representative and accountable, basic human rights respected
and property rights should be equitable, clear and secure. Low income customary natural
resource users should as a minimum be compensated somehow for their losses, although this
is very difficult when they are deprived of their livelihoods and autonomy. The interests
of others who are negatively affected by externalities arising from shrimp farming
(including future generations) should be taken fully into account. Given the many
limitations of compensation schemes — because of incommensurabilities in values and
of political instability, it would usually be more practical and correct to prevent the
polluters from causing the damage in the first place, through regulatory means and
economic incentives, than to attempt compensation for those who are harmed. But it is not
realistic to expect the shrimp industry to follow such criteria unless they are applicable
more generally to other sectors, and at global as well as national and local levels.
Unfortunately, these injunctions can be little more than pious wishes
without broader reforms in socio-economic and political relations locally, nationally and
internationally. This is not the place to discuss what such broader reforms should
include, or how they might be brought about. Perhaps, pressures on the shrimp farming
industry to clean up its act by becoming more environmentally and socially concerned could
make a modest contribution in this direction. High income purchasers should, in any case,
have to pay the real price of their consumption.
Pressures on the industry to move in this direction could come from
several sources. One could be from industrialists and investors who become increasingly
concerned about the industry's longer term social and environmental sustainability. The
scientific community could become an important pressure group to the extent some of its
members become aware of the ecological damages the industry's expansion implies. Another
could be from other industries coveting the same natural resources, such as tourism,
commercial agro-exporters and urban developers who can compete politically and
economically on more or less equal terms with shrimp producers. Also, one should not
neglect pressures for reform emanating from far-sighted civil servants and political
leaders within national states and international organizations.[41] Environmental groups as well as human rights and
consumer organizations are already becoming increasingly concerned and putting pressures
for reforms on both governments and the industry itself. The organized pressures from
hitherto powerless social actors who are negatively affected, such as peasants,
fisherfolk, villagers and landless labourers, are already increasing and such initiatives
should be widely supported and protected by all who are socially and environmentally
concerned.
Policy and institutional reforms are required at all levels. The
possibilities of bringing about such reforms will largely depend upon the effective
participation of the key social actors and of alliances of concerned parties in both
producing and consuming countries.
Footnotes
32. Approximate calculations suggest that about
150,000 hectares may have been abandoned between 1985 and 1995, and that possibly another
100,000 will be left in an unproductive or severely degraded state by the year 2000
(Finger and Gujja, forthcoming). This issue requires more empirical research.
33. Maw-Cheng Yang, an economist at the World
Bank, estimates that if cultured shrimp production increases at 10 per cent per year
during the decade of the 1990s (which implies an overall 260 per cent increase), real
shrimp prices will decline by 14 per cent over this period of time. If, however, farmed
shrimp production grows by only 5 per cent annually during the 1990s, by the year 2000
shrimp prices will be 23 per cent higher than the 1988 level. Of course, these estimates
imply several assumptions about the dynamics of the coastal shrimp industry as well as
about consumer demand.
34. An analysis of the institutional constraints
to the application of these laws in general for India can be found in Khator, 1991.
35. The grassroots organization Land for the
Tiller (LAFTI), the social organizations PREPARE and Orissa Krushak, the Tamil Nadu Gram
Swaraj Movement and the Research Foundation for Science and Ecology launched, in March
1995, a national campaign, the People's Alliance against the Shrimp Industry (Khor, 1995).
36. Molluscs and seaweeds consume and break down
organic sediments (Chandrkrachang, Chinadit, Chandayot and Supasiri, 1991).
37. Zoning, even if effective and participatory,
is insufficient as there should be social and environmental impact assessments at each
step in carrying out coastal area plans.
38. According to a working definition of UNRISD,
participation is: "the organized efforts to increase control over resources and
regulative institutions in given social situations, on the part of groups and movements of
those hitherto excluded from such control" (Pearce and Stiefel, 1979:8).
39. Furthermore, it is often questionable who
should pay for the pollution — how much should be the obligation of the farm
producer, the marketing firm or the consumer? The applicability of the polluter pays
principle is not straightforward. Who actually pays the bill depends largely on the
relative bargaining power of the various social actors.
40. Normative debates about the fundamental
criteria for making the shrimp industry "sustainable" should consider questions
such as the following: (1) How much pollution is acceptable to whom? (2) Whose former
activities can be displaced, and by how much, to leave space and resources for the new
industry? (3) How many jobs and livelihoods can the industry provide? (4) What
institutions and policies (governmental and non-governmental) are required to induce the
industry to become socially and environmentally sustainable? (5) How can all concerned
actors be involved in addressing such questions and having their claims taken into
account?
41. For example, Dr. Alagarswamy, Director of the
(Indian) Central Institute of Brackish Water Aquaculture for the Sustainable Development
of Shrimp Farming, states that shrimp aquaculture should confront the six following
principles of sustainable development: social acceptability; equity; economic viability;
technical appropriateness; environmental soundness and conservation of resources
(Alagarswamy, 1995:14). |
