Mangrove Action Project is part of the global coalition protesting this latest move by WWF to certify farmed shrimp and other unsustainable aquaculture industries, such as salmon farming. The social problems created by the shrimp industry were and still are a major factor in our stance against the shrimp farms. As well, the environmental issues, including mangrove loss and intertidal zone degradation, affecting coral reefs and sea grass beds and overall marine biodiversity are also still persistent and seriously problematic.

Though in certain instances, some noteworthy improvements have been and are being made in the shrimp aquaculture industry, these represent a small fraction of that industry's present existence, and the same problems we have battled against since MAP's inception almost 17 years ago still plague the industry as it expands into new territories in Africa, Latin America and Asia, taking the old problems and multiplying them along with its expansion. These problems aren’t being resolved in a timely and effective manner by the innovations and improvements and many different certification attempts being made. Improvements to a small fraction of the operations do not mean resolution of the major issues still threatening communities and ecology in the existing and new aquaculture "territories." It is this still rapid expansion of the industry and its inherent problems that we are protesting. It is the notion that the small fraction of improved systems means we can relax our stance against the ever expanding bad systems of production, which still far outpace the improvements in scope and scale, especially as they encroach on new coastlines in new nations where lack of planning, management and enforcement and plenty of industry and political corruption are prevalent.

Yes, this might be another corporate sponsored certification program to appease consumer while actually doing very little, such as FSC for the timber industry. WWF are as bad as others such as Rainforest Alliance, in bed with McDonalds.