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From: Pamela McElwee via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2024 8:28 PM
To: vsg@u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
All -
I have not seen the documentary that started this thread but on the question of shrimp aquaculture as a driver of mangrove deforestation there is no doubt of the connection. Southeast Asia accounts for almost 90% of global aquaculture production: Vietnam is the world’s number two exporter of shrimp, and has the largest area of shrimp ponds in the world. Mangroves have declined globally by around a quarter over the last four decades, and 80% of those losses were caused by anthropogenic activity in Southeast Asia. The extensification that characterized the early development of aquaculture, necessitating cutting down mangroves to build ponds in the 1990s and moved more towards intensification as fewer coastal areas have been available for conversion. This has required considerable capital to dig ponds, line them, install aerators and sluice gates, and regularly acquire hatchlings, feed, and antibiotics, leaving capital and labor-poor households on the sidelines. Boom and bust cycles–with some making a killing while others were impoverished and indebted–has contributed to rising inequality in many of these rural coastal areas along the Mekong Delta’s shores.
Shrimp certification has been proposed as one solution as it requires producers to meet voluntary guidelines for sustainable production in return for a higher price premium. It is primarily driven by demands for traceability and quality assurance for importing countries like the EU, US, and Japan. Some certification standards require different measures of environmental compliance, such as assuring no loss of mangroves or use of antibiotics. Ca Mau province produces 25% of Vietnam’s export shrimp and uses six different certification schemes depending on the destination. But certification comprises less than 4% of the total global market, and only around 3% of shrimp in Vietnam are certified. Certification also usually favors larger producers, who can complete the burdensome compliance requirements, and can serve to increase the power of larger industrial producers over smallholder producers. So it is not a win-win story by any means.
You can read more about this problem alongside a number of other sustainability issues in a new book I have written on Sustainable Development and the Environment in Southeast Asia which hopefully may be out by fall sometime.
Pam McElwee, Rutgers
Dr. Pamela McElwee (she/her), Professor
School of Environmental and Biological Sciences
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
pm473@sebs.rutgers.edu
www.pamelamcelwee.com
@pammcelwee (on BlueSky, Twitter)
Co-chair, Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) “Nexus” assessment: ipbes.net/nexus
Recent publications:
US Fifth National Climate Assessment Chapter 8 Ecosystems, Ecosystem Services, and Biodiversity
Climate precarity in rural livelihoods: Agrarian transformations and smallholder vulnerability in Vietnam, Journal of Agrarian Change
Governing for transformative change across the biodiversity-climate-society nexus, Bioscience
Advocating afforestation, betting on BECCS: land-based negative emissions technologies (NETs) and agrarian livelihoods in the global South, Journal of Peasant Studies
From: David Marr via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 10:11 PM
To: Thi Bay Miradoli <thibay.miradoli@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
Having spent several months in Soc Trang and vicinity in 1962, I’m amazed from this article to see how much has changed along the coast especially. Shrimp farms are booming. But I wonder what has happened to the mangrove forests.
David Marr
ANU
From: Thi Bay Miradoli via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 3:27 PM
To: Nhu Miller <trantnhu@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
My good friend Olivier Joffre, formerly with World Fish, researched and wrote prolifically on the topic, some of which I had the pleasure of editing.
Here is an article he co-authored while still with World Fish: Are shrimp farmers actual gamblers? An analysis of risk perception and risk management behaviors among shrimp farmers in the Mekong Delta https://knowledge4food.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/2018-06_Shrimp_Farmers_Gamblers.pdf
Thi Bay Miradoli
Unaffiliated
From: Nhu Miller via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 1:09 PM
To: Tuan Hoang <tuannyriver@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
Thanks for heads up. I could have easily missed this.
I've been wondering where all Costco shrimp came from.
Relieved to find out it's not from Thai/Burmese slave labor
and there is consideration to mangrove preservation..
T.T. Nhu
From: Edward G. Miller via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 9:39 AM
To: Tuan Hoang <tuannyriver@gmail.com>; mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
Hi Tuan:
Your skepticism about the documentary’s straightforward tale of environmentally sustainable success is well founded. Although the film does not mention the location by name, the ShrimpVet demonstration farm is located in Cần Giờ district, which is home to a large mangrove biosphere reserve. Cần Giờ has long been held up as Vietnam’s pre-eminent example of successful environmental protection, following the successful post-1975 mangrove reforestation program there. But VinGroup is fixing to build a luxury “ecotourism city” along the coast of the district, much to the dismay of environmental experts and advocacy groups:
This suggests that the environmental governance issues here are indeed far more complicated than simply banning the destruction of mangroves for aquacultural purposes.
Edward Miller (he, his, him)
Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies
Chair of the Department of Asian Societies, Cultures, and Languages
Director of the Dartmouth Digital History Initiative
Dartmouth College
6107 Carson Hall, Hanover, NH 03755
Edward.Miller@Dartmouth.edu
http://history.dartmouth.edu/people/edward-miller
From: Tuan Hoang via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 8:44 AM
To: mchale@gwu.edu
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
Shawn-
Indeed. I'd add that the loss of mangroves was a regional issue, and not exclusive to Vietnam. For a long period during the 1990s and 2000s, Southeast Asia saw a greater loss of mangroves, proportionally speaking, than any other region in the world.
This documentary states that Vietnam was among the first countries that banned the destruction of mangroves. It's probably a little more complicated, as the number of mangrove hectares has continued to grow smaller. In comparison to the documentary's optimistic tone is a grimmer perspective of this article:
https://dialogue.earth/en/nature/shrimp-farmers-working-with-mangroves-mekong-delta-vietnam/
Tuan Hoang
Pepperdine University
www.tuannyriver.com/about
From: Shawn McHale via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 7:53 AM
To: Tuan Hoang <tuannyriver@gmail.com>
Cc: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
When Peter Zinoman and I were briefly at the University of Cần Thơ in 1989, in the heart of the Mekong delta, the University of Waginengen in the Netherlands was involved, with that university, in a project to expand shrimp production, which quickly ramped up. But as shrimp production rapidly expanded, including to mangrove areas, it had deleterious impacts as well (e.g. on mangroves!) It seems to me that after this initial burst of expansion, various actors in Vietnam came to realize that the massive expansion of shrimp production had both great benefits -- addressing a big market -- but also came with serious costs.
Shawn McHale
George Washington University
From: Tuan Hoang via Vsg <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2024 7:27 AM
To: Vietnam Studies Group <vsg@u.washington.edu>
Subject: [Vsg] How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry
PBS (US) has a new, three-part series about aquaculture called Hope in the Water. The second episode includes a segment about the shrimp industry in Vietnam. At its center is Loc Tran, who was studying shrimp pathology in Arizona during the pathogen crisis in 2011 that threatened to wipe out the industry. He returned to Vietnam and helped reshape and revive the industry.
The documentary states that Vietnam is among the largest exporters of shrimps. Anecdotally, some of the comments under the videos note that Costco has been selling a lot of shrimps from Vietnam.
Segment "How an Economic Disaster Shaped Vietnam’s Shrimp Industry":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DogYUkebDsk
Full episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZbepDycXVY
Tuan Hoang
Pepperdine University
www.tuannyriver.com/about
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