Impact of Shrimp Farming on Mangrove Forest and Other Coastal Wetlands: The Case of Mexico

Since the middle of the twentieth century, the shrimp farming industry has shown steady growth along the tropical and subtropical coasts of the world. The world’s cultivated shrimp production in 1950 was 1325 tons, amounting just 0.3% of the total production for these crustaceans, which were mainly extracted from coastal and estuarine environments. Thirty years later, by 1982, the global shrimp production surpassed one million tons. By 2009, shrimp production grew to nearly 3.5 million tons valued at approximately 14.6 billion dollars, amounting to 34% of the world’s shrimp production, including marine and estuarine catches (Fig. 1) (FAO, 2011).