Shrimp Take Toll in ‘Tropical Paradise’ : Thailand: Farming of Black Tiger prawns despoils mangroves and leads to widespread water and land pollution.

Farming succulent Black Tiger prawns is despoiling this resort island, billed as Thailand’s “tropical paradise,” experts say.

Shrimp farming on Phuket and throughout Thailand has been a major economic success story. The country has become a leading exporter, sending some 250,000 tons of shrimp worth $1.68 billion around the world last year.

But the environmental cost has been high--widespread loss of mangroves, water and land pollution, and destruction of other sea life.

Santi Bang-oa, assistant secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Board, says about 634,000 acres of the country’s 950,000 acres of mangrove forests have been destroyed by shrimp farms.

He notes that about a quarter of the shrimp farms are abandoned after a period and that the soil left behind is useless for other purposes because it has lost its fertility.

On Phuket, a stunningly beautiful island that yearly attracts some 2 million foreign tourists, about 70% of the lush and lovely mangroves that fringed its eastern coast have been stripped over the last five years.

To set up a farm and hatchery for shrimp, mangroves and other vegetation must be totally stripped for the digging of earthen ponds and concrete structures--sights that tourism officials say are incompatible with Phuket’s vacationland image.

Although most of the tourist beaches are across the island on the western shore, non-treated waste from the farms also has worsened Phuket’s general water quality, which is already deteriorating from increased tourism.

Scientists from the Phuket Coastal Aquaculture Development Center also warn that shrimp excrete wastes high in nitrates and ammonia, which kill off small shell-life and plants and thus destroy vital links in the ocean’s food chain.

Manop na Nakorn, director of the Forestry Department’s division of mangrove management, favors a ban on all further shrimp farming. He blames lax law enforcement and complicated land laws for continued encroachment on protected mangroves.

“We have a helicopter making twice-monthly overflights. We can see the steady destruction of the mangroves clearly from the air,” he said. “We move in on the culprits but . . . little ends up being done to stop them.”

Phuket’s governor, Sudjit Nimitkul, favors zoning to keep shrimp farms separate from agricultural land and tourist areas.

Even some shrimp farmers agree that limits have to be set and waste water management implemented, something rarely practiced by small operators.

One such farmer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “We use 66 pounds of feed per day for every ton of shrimp. Plus we add fertilizer, chemicals and even medicines. That creates some pretty foul water.”