With no alternatives, thousands have been forced to work for wages on their own land, or to migrate to the cities for low wage work. Police corruption is widespread. When the people go to police with their complaints, police often refuse to register their cases. Local coastal people are being denied their right of livelihood. Where there is intensive shrimp farming, traditional life on the land and the sea is being destroyed.
Water leaching from the shrimp ponds turn farmers plots into salinated wastelands nothing grows.
Now, in the Indian state of Andhra and Tamil Nadu, basic food security is at stake. Coastal marine resources have declined drastically. Chemical and pesticide pollution from the shrimp ponds has destroyed marine ecosystems that once teemed with life. Now fishers nets come up empty. Their boats, more often than not, remain on shore.