Download Let Them Eat Shrimp: The Tragic Disappearance of the Rainforests of the Sea AudioBook Free
What's the connection between a platter of jumbo shrimp at your local restaurant and murdered anglers in Honduras, impoverished women in Ecuador, and disastrous hurricanes along America's Gulf seacoast? Mangroves. Many people have never heard about these salt-water forests, but for many who depend on their riches, mangroves are essential. They can be natural storm barriers, home to countless exotic animals - from crab eating vipers to man-eating tigers - and offer food and livelihoods to millions of coastal dwellers. Now they can be being ruined to make way for shrimp farming and other coastal development. For individuals who stand in the form of these industries, the consequences can be dangerous. In Let Them Eat Shrimp, Kennedy Warne takes listeners 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 can be supermarkets of the sea, providing shellfish, crabs, honey, timber, and charcoal to coastal neighborhoods from Florida to South America to New Zealand. Years have built their lives around mangroves and examine these swamps sacred. To shrimp farmers and land builders, mangroves simply represent a good investment. The tidal land which they stand often has no subject, so with a nod and wink from a compliant standard, it could be switched from a public resource to an exclusive possession. The forests are bulldozed, their traditional users dispossessed. The real price of shrimp farming and other coastal development has gone largely unheralded in the U.S. press. A longtime journalist, Warne now catches the insatiability of these market sectors and the magic of the mangroves. His brilliant account can make every listener pause before buying the shrimp.
