Resisting the blue revolution: Contending coalitions surrounding industrial shrimp farming

Human Organization, Spring 2000 by Stonich, Susan C, Bailey, Conner

There are continuing underlying and overt tensions among members of the global resistance coalition. The latest evidence of this occurred shortly after the second international meeting of ISA Net in Ecuador in November 1998. In January 1999, a founding member of ISA Net and a former member of the ISA Net steering committee announced the formation of a new grassroots organization composed primarily of members from India (Third World Alliance Against Industrial Shrimp [TWAAIS]). This individual had been one of the most adamant and vocal of the southern NGOs regarding the nature of the North-South coalition. His position has been that shrimp farming presented a problem to the people of the South and any movement against it should be organized and run from the South. His feeling is that the northern members of ISA Net (WWF, NRDC, EDF, and even MAP) are too powerful in the coalition. He is not alone in this sentiment; other southern members of ISA Net to varying degrees share his position.

Despite divergent points of view among members, there is evidence that resistance activities are making some progress toward achieving their goals. For example, in response to escalating, sometimes violent, social conflict, destruction of coastal environments, and national and international pressure, the Honduran government issued a one-year moratorium on the expansion of shrimp farms along the Pacific Coast of southern Honduras in 1996. The Supreme Court of India in December 1996 ruled in favor of a class action lawsuit brought by thousands of coastal people against the shrimp industry. It ordered the demolition of thousands of shrimp farms set up by Indian and multinational corporations in an estimated 100,000 acres of ecologically fragile coastline. It also demanded that the industry compensate the hundreds of thousands of Indians who lost vital economic resources and livelihoods when the farms were built. But there has been backlash. In Honduras, the government was quite lax in enforcing the moratorium, and the industry, with government and donor support, is attempting to counter NGO efforts by establishing more pro-industry, local-level NGOs and industry-supported voluntary associations, such as soccer clubs, in the shrimp farming area. In India, industry supporters with national and international assistance have made a concerted effort to overturn the Supreme Court decision, and the Indian Parliament is in the process of reviewing (and perhaps overturning) the Supreme Court decision.

Despite setbacks and vigorous debates among members, the new global network, ISA Net, has been remarkably successful in obtaining some funding and in maintaining its integrity and effectiveness in the face of formidable odds and significant differences among its members. Here, advanced information and communications technologies (ICTs), particularly the Internet, have played a key role (Stonich 1998a). A dramatic example of this occurred quite recently. On Wednesday, July 29, 1998, the following e-mail message was sent to coalition supporters by the Secretariat of ISA Net, who was in Ecuador as part of a joint campaign with Greenpeace. The message was marked "Urgent."