The real cost of a prawn sandwich - Currents - Brief Article

New Internationalist, July, 2003

Recent reports by the British-based Environmental Justice Association and the US-based Wild Aid argue that it is fishing -- rather than global warming or pollution -- that poses the greatest short-term threat to marine biodiversity. Profiling one of the mast destructive and wasteful fisheries -- prawn trawling -- the reports say:

* Prawn trawlers catch 10-20 kg of marine species to obtain just 1 kg of prawns in the tropics. This non-target bycatch is usually discarded overboard, dead or dying.

* Prawn fisheries alone are responsible for a third of the world's discarded catch, despite producing less than two per cent of global seafood.

* Local and indigenous fisher-people are most affected, with catches declining sharply in areas where prawn trawlers operate.

* Prawn trawlers kill 150,000 sea turtles every year.

* Research has shown that up to 25 per cent of seabed life can be removed by the passing of just one prawn trawler.

The reports call on supermarkets to prove their prawns come from environmentally and socially sustainable sources, urging consumers not to buy any prawns until this is done.