Questions or ideas?
We would love to hear from you!
Europe’s Appetite for Cheap Industrial Shrimp is Wiping Ecuador’s Mangroves off the Map
New report exposes the hidden environmental and social cost of the Ecuadorian shrimp farming industry
Shrimps are Europe’s most valuable wild seafood product, yet in the last 20 years the market has been flooded by much cheaper imports of Ecuadorian farmed shrimp. The country’s rising production surged from roughly 40,000 tonnes in 2000 to an estimated 1.2 million tonnes in recent years. This is an astronomical change, now more than half of the shrimp imported into the EU comes from Ecuador.
Ecuador’s shrimps are not caught in the wild but farmed on a massive scale, most often in areas where mangrove forests or agricultural lands have been cleared. Our report is introduced by a lawyer representing a community who faced eviction from their farming lands in early 2026. Conflicts over land and space are rife, shrimp farms now occupy 220,000 hectares of land. Impacts on small scale fishers are also significant, not only because of mangrove disappearance but also because farmed shrimp are fed 178,000 tonnes of wild fish as feed every year.
Spain is the main European importer, bringing in more shrimp from Ecuador annually than is caught or farmed across the entire European Union combined. Spanish fishing companies are also increasingly investing in the industry. The climate impacts are not to be overlooked, land use and feed input mean farmed shrimp’s average greenhouse gas emissions are higher than that of the average dairy cow.
Our new research, conducted together with Animal Welfare Observatory and supported by Eurogroup for Animals shows that the environmental and social harm behind this growing trade has remained largely invisible to consumers.
As our Research Campaigner Pieter puts it: “Farmed shrimp is an extractive industry and an example of nutrient colonialism. Large feed companies are emptying South American oceans for fishmeal and clearing land for soymeal as demand for feed for cheap shrimps reaches unprecedented levels in Europe. Consumers are being largely left in the dark about the origins of their seafood”.