Let Them Eat Shrimp

What's the connection between a plate of king prawns at your local restaurant and murdered fishermen in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America's Gulf coast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard of these salt-water forests, but for those who depend on their riches, mangroves are indispensable. They are natural storm barriers, home to innumerable exotic creatures - from crab-eating vipers to man-eating tigers - and provide food and livelihoods to millions of coastal dwellers. Now they are being destroyed to make way for shellfish farming and other coastal development. For those who stand in the way of these industries, the consequences can be deadly. In "Let Them Eat Shrimp", Kennedy Warne takes readers into the muddy battle zone that is the mangrove forest. A tangle of snaking roots and twisted trunks, mangroves are often dismissed as foul wastelands. In fact, they are supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal communities from New Zealand to South America to Florida. Generations have built their lives around mangroves and consider these swamps sacred.To shellfish farmers and land developers, mangroves simply represent a good investment. The tidal land on which they stand often has no title, so with a nod and wink from a compliant official, it can be turned from a public resource to a private possession. The forests are bulldozed; their traditional users dispossessed. The true price of shellfish farming and other coastal development has gone largely unheralded in the media. A longtime journalist, Warne now captures the insatiability of these industries and the magic of the mangroves.

"Based in New Zealand, Warne is a journalist and founding editor of New Zealand Geographic. He offers an extended narrative describing what he learned as he investigated the profound importance of mangrove forests to the ecological balance of the areas near the ocean where they are located, and to the people who depend on that ecosystem. The story involves the impact of shrimp aquaculture and massive coastal development--both of which devastate these 'rainforests of the sea' and disable their mitigation of climate change through carbon storage as well as the protection they give coastlines in the event of tsunamis."-- "Reference & Research Book News", "Kennedy Warne's effort to 'set the record straight' with respect to mangroves comes at a critical time and at an appropriate level to catch the attention of stakeholders, land use planners, and policy makers around the world." -- "Journal of Environmental Studies and Science", "Rainforests of the land evoke a lot more international concern, and Warne includes in the last chapter of his vivid and pithy book a vignette of a scientist glooming about the undeservedly low public profile of mangroves. Warne's book sets out to remedy this, but it's far from mere lecturing. Warne, founding editor of New Zealand Geographic, visits mangroves around the world and lets what he sees and the people he meets make their own case. The book is a travelog with attitude."-- "Science News", "Let Them Eat Shrimp lays bare the hidden consequences of everyday consumption, showing how Americans' eating habits are changing lives around the globe. Warne's narrative has staying power, but the worlds he captures are disappearing in the blink of an eye."--Wade Davis "author of The Serpent and the Rainbow and One River", "Kennedy Warne is a 21st century Lorax--he speaks not only for the mangrove trees but also for the disenfranchised, disempowered, and betrayed people who depend on mangrove forests for their lives and their dignity. Let Them Eat Shrimp raises a clarion call to action against those who continue to put profits before people and consumption before reverence."--Aaron M. Ellison "Senior Ecologist and Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University"

Kennedy Warne is author of and founding editor of New Zealand Geographic. His articles have appeared in National Geographic, Smithsonian, GEO, and other publications.