Thanks to U.S. ban on wild-caught shrimps, India lost $500 million since 2019

India has suffered a loss of $500 million in the last five years on account of the U.S. ban on its export of wild-caught shrimps.

This was one of the findings of a report of conservation and trade policies on marine mammals and turtles. The U.S.’ ban on shrimp from India was based on its law “that prohibits the import of wild-caught shrimp” from commercial fisheries, negatively impacting sea turtles. “Sea turtles are incidentally caught along with fishes in fishing gears,” the report pointed out.

Presented by the Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) under the Union government’s Commerce Department along with the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute and Central Institute of Fisheries Technologyat a meeting of experts here last week, the report said the livelihood of fishermen had been hit by the ban.

The country had finalised two designs of Turtle Excluder Device (TED) to be fitted in the trawl net as per the technical requirements of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. One of the designs had been approved by the NOAA for implementation in India as it facilitated  “escapement of incidentally caught sea turtles.”   It was expected that the use of TED by the fishers in the trawls would substantially reduce mortality of sea turtles.  Field demonstrations were in progress in all maritime States to create awareness among stakeholders on the importance of TED.

The meet also emphasised the need for developing “an appropriate regulatory programme” for conservation on marine mammals such as whales, dolphins, porpoise and dugong, in compliance with the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) of the U.S. In this case also, the bycatch of marine mammals in fishing operations should be reduced by India, failing which the export of all wild caught items to the U.S. would be hit. 

At the meeting, Indian marine scientists maintained the view that the country’s fishermen were using indigenous methods to reduce marine mammal-fisheries interaction, saying that as per traditional beliefs, turtles were being protected by the Indian fishing community.