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Honduras Fishing
Honduras significantly developed its shrimp industry
during the
1980s and in the Latin American market was second only to
Ecuador
in shrimp exports by 1991. In 1992 shrimp and lobster
jumped to 12
percent of export earnings. Shrimp contributed US$97
million in
export sales to the economy in 1992--an increase of 33
percent over
the previous year. The industry was dependent, however, on
larvae
imported from the United States to augment its unstable
natural
supply. Technicians from Taiwan were contracted by large
producers
in 1991 to help develop laboratory larvae, but bitter
feuds
developed between independent shrimpers and the
corporations. Local
shrimpers charged that corporate methods were damaging the
environment and destroying natural stock through
destruction of the
mangrove breeding swamps. Corporate shrimp farmers then
began to
move their operations farther inland, leaving local
shrimpers to
contend with diminished natural supplies on the
mosquito-infested
coast.
Data as of December 1993
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