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A Developing Ideas series.

FOCUS ON VIETNAM: Small Shrimp Getting Fried in Vietnam

Mekong Delta pollution casts a cloud over region's growing shrimp industry. Part 4 of 4

By Shirley Brady

CAN GIO, Vietnam - Forrest Gump isn't the only US Army veteran to make his name and fortune in shrimp after the Vietnam War. But unlike Gump, Gil Watts returned to Vietnam rather than the US to trawl his way to success. His hard work and concerned eye for fish conservation may turn up empty nets and pockets, however, as a string of environmental disasters calls the future of Mekong Delta shrimping into question. Small fry fishermen as well as bigger fish like Watts are feeling the heat of industrialization.

Watts has long tried to be a caring steward of the oceans. He regularly sends a diver down with his nets, for example, to ensure that no dolphins are trapped when hauling in his catch of sardines, mackerel or tuna. The American's success in the highly competitive Southeast Asian deep-sea fishing industry prompted the Vietnamese government to invite him to introduce his techniques off its long, snaking coastline. The government hopes Watts's more environmentally-friendly methods will replace the more dubious practices of shallow coastal fishing which predominate in the country. Meanwhile, Watts has also been trying to promote more sustainable methods of shrimping among the struggling farmers in the Mekong Delta, where he is based.

The government is hoping an accord signed in April between Vietnam and its Mekong neighbours - Cambodia, Thailand and Laos - will develop the basin's infrastructure and bring prosperity to the southern farmers. The resource-rich delta may be the nation's rice bowl, providing 60% of its agricultural output, but its inhabitants are still among the poorest in Vietnam.

The majority of overseas refugees following the collapse of the southern regime in 1975 fled this area south of the former Saigon, leaving for political as well as economic reasons. A recent World Bank report estimates that the 16 million residents of the southern delta have a per capita income of US$165 a year, compared to US$240 elsewhere in the country. Only one in four households here has electricity, and 80% of people get their water directly from the Mekong River. Many of them have pinned their hopes on shrimp to break the cycle of poverty.

Southern farmers got the shrimp bug after the government embraced market economics in the late 1980s and transferred 500,000 hectares of swamp and boggy mangrove forest into prawn farms before turning the land over to the people. But conversion to shrimp farms has unwittingly weakened the ecosystem in the region. The shrimp rush resulted in 70% of the surviving forest cover being illegally cleared to make room for ponds - the region having already lost half its trees to herbicides and defoliants during the war.

"The wide-scale destruction of the mangrove forests has left the land vulnerable and exposed to pollution and chemicals carried along the river system," says Dr. Nguyen Hoang Tri, director of the Mangrove Ecosystem Research Centre at Hanoi University. This lifeblood which bisects the south transports other agents of destruction, including a 'mystery virus' which killed off much of Vietnam's shrimp harvest in 1993-94, causing losses of US$100 million for the industry.

Believing the shrimp virus was spread by infected hatcheries caused by over-pollution from the intensive aquaculture techniques prevalent in Vietnam, and wanting to show that more environmentally-sound practices would ward off the disease, Watts decided to produce and distribute shrimp fry using better water filtration and less intensive cultivation methods. His experiment proved a success, with the hatchery spawning bumper crops for farmers in the southern delta.

Before the benefits could be reaped, however, the area was decimated by two oil spills. These fell five months apart, turning the Saigon river into an oily soup.

While environmental catastrophes like these wiped out profits for shrimp farmers in 1994, they've proved a boon for the government. Last month (June) the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee reached a settlement agreement of US$2.75 million from Taiwan in compensation for 100 tonnes of Taiwanese oil dumped into the Saigon River last May. Another US$6.75 million was received - with still more promised - as a result of the October ramming of a Saigon pier by the Singapore-owned Neptune Aries, spilling 1,700 tonnes of oil and destroying hundreds of square kilometres of mangroves and waterways in the Saigon River basin. Though some farmers have already received compensation, plans have not yet been announced for how much individuals may claim, or how much funding will go toward cleaning up after the two accidents.

The government is currently reviewing Vietnam's 1993 environmental law to create a national action plan on the environment, vowing to get even tougher. It recently filed its first lawsuit against a corporate polluter, the Taiwanese-owned Vedan monosodium glutamate (MSG) plant in Dong Nai province - again because the area's shrimp were being killed, this time by the factory's poorly treated waste.

But the Delta's residents are privately wondering how much of the monies exacted will actually go toward compensation and clean-up. "They make the laws, so you can't sue them," Watts says, adding that a clearer government policy is needed in the event of future disasters.

While accidents are unforeseen, industrial pollution is likely to continue fouling Vietnam's waterways, particularly given the ambitious plans by the signatories to the new Mekong Delta accord. Whether stricter enforcement of Vietnam's legislation and financial penalties will aid in preventing future pollution of the river remains to be seen. Meanwhile, it's not just the shrimp fry, but the small guy, who is struggling in the wake of Vietnam's rush to do business.