Throughout Asia and Ecuador human rights violations are occurring as a result of shrimp aquaculture expansion . Whole populations of indigenous people are being denied their basic rights to life, livelihood, property, freedom of assembly and equality before the law. Large scale shrimp farming brings immediate profits and foreign currency to cash strapped local people. Governments look the other way as urban industrialists conspire, laws are ignored at the local level, and shrimp ponds expand virtually unchecked. Lands Taken Mangrove forests are claimed by the state in most shrimp producing countries.
Coastal villagers tend to have traditional rather than legally recognized property rights.
Until recently, governments have allowed the coastal people to exercise their traditional rights to sustainably use mangrove resources for the staples of life. Generations of women and children have collected wild fruits and vegetables, gathered plants for medicines and found construction materials for their homes. Farmers have harvested rice, millet and other crops from small plots handed down to them from their ancestors. Fisherfolk, like their fathers and forefathers, have repaired their boats and mended their nets along the beaches and have relied on small catches of fish and crustaceans spawned in the mangrove nursebeds. The way of life of these people has changed abruptly with the introduction and expansion of large scale, intensive shrimp farming.