Thai shrimp-farming industry under fire

THAILAND’S multi-billiondollar shrimp industry has been fiercely criticised in an article published by one of the world’s most popular news websites.

Writing for Britain’s MailOnline — which registered a record 127 million unique browsers in January — journalist Jim Wickens said he would “never eat a king prawn again” after observing Thailand’s shrimp trade.

Thailand produced about 540,000 tonnes of shrimp in 2012 and is the world’s biggest exporter, with annual sales worth between $3 billion and $4 billion.

The report, published on Saturday, claims Thailand’s prawning industry is sustained by slave labour and is destroying marine life and the environment.

Wickens claims to have gone undercover to witness the reality of Thailand’s shrimp industry, going to unusual lengths to gain access to fishing trawlers.

“My technique for getting aboard was a dangerous one,” he wrote.

“More than once, I had to throw myself into the sea so that a passing trash fish boat was obliged to ‘rescue’ me.”

Wickens wrote that he saw the devastation deep-sea fishing trawlers cause to marine life as they scoop up everything in their path in the hunt for valuable prawns.

He claims human trafficking is a problem in the Thai shrimp-fishing industry, with “often enslaved crews” from neighbouring countries “who are tricked into coming to Thailand by the false promise of generous wages” working on trawlers under terrible conditions.

“While on board, I discovered that trafficked labourers from Burma and Cambodia are forced to work 20 hours a day, seven days a week, on boats where they are often beaten, abused, even killed by unscrupulous skippers,” Wickens wrote.

He also spoke of his concern about the destruction of mangrove forests to make way for industrial-size prawn farms.

Mangrove forests are important to the ecosystem because they prevent coastal erosion and maintain water quality and clarity.