PBI-Guatemala accompanies the CCR as it meets with ASOGRIPEZDICH fishers to defend together the right to water

Published by Brent Patterson on July 4, 2024July 4, 2024

PBI-Guatemala has posted: “Yesterday [June 30], #PBIaccompanies the Board of Directors of the Council of Communities of Retalhuleu (CCR) to the meeting with the Association of Farmers and Fishermen Integral of Champerico (Asogripezdich), a new association that since a few months ago joined the Council to defend together the right to water.”

The right to water in Guatemala has been impacted by multiple threats, including shrimp farming and sugar plantations.

Shrimp farming

Back in March 2021, we noted that six fishers had been criminalized since 2015 by the shrimp company, Pesca Nova S.A.

The Bufete para Pueblos Indígenas explained: “This is due to their exercise in defence of a healthy environment and for having denounced the contamination that this shrimp company was doing in the estuaries from which the families were supplied.”

UDEFEGUA further explains: “[The fishers] demanded intervention from MAGA [the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food] and MARN [Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources] due to contamination and ecocide in the Champerico estuary by the [Pesca Nova S.A.] company.”

The World Rainforest Movement has also noted: “Fisherfolk have seen their traditional fishing grounds threatened by the intrusive moves of the company which has also polluted the estuaries, logged mangroves to build industrial shrimp ponds, provoked the death of hundreds of fish, and repressed and intimidated fisherfolk.”

Historically, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has noted: “According to their value, the Guatemalan shrimp exports in 2003 were distributed as follows: United States, 54 percent; Europe (Spain and France), 44 percent; other, 2 percent.”

Additional research is required to know the current markets for Guatemalan shrimp exports.

Sugar plantations

Simon Granovsky-Larsen, an Assistant Professor of Politics and International Studies at the University of Regina has written about resistance to sugarcane plantations in Renewable energy and the fight over Guatemalan rivers (Down To Earth, September 2018).

Granovsky-Larsen notes: “Due to a shortage of water, plantations have begun ‘stealing’ water, in the words of people from surrounding communities: diverting river routes, mechanically extracting river water and drilling deep wells.”

PBI-Guatemala has noted: “The CCR began to organize in 2015 as a result of adverse effects caused by the expansion of the monoculture of sugar and the use of large-scale agrochemicals and pesticides used by the mills in the region.” Four members of the CCR have been criminalized since November 2019 due to their advocacy. It was not until May 30, 2023, that they were fully acquitted.

Canada

Between 2015 and 2022, Canada imported 1.46 million metric tons of sugar from Guatemala. The sugarcane crop system in Guatemala requires about 100 cubic meters of water per ton. That would suggest that the sugar exported to Canada since 2015 has required 146 million cubic meters of water.

In 2023, Canada continued to be one of the largest importers of unrefined sugar from Guatemala. That sugar is transported to the Lantic/Rogers refinery in Vancouver and the Redpath refinery in Toronto.

Source: United States Department of Agriculture, April 1, 2024.

If Canada imports shrimp from Guatemala, the amounts may be small.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has noted: “Top suppliers of fish and seafood to Canada [in 2021] were the United States ($1.67B), China ($520M) and Vietnam ($314M), accounting for 54 percent of Canada’s total fish and seafood import value.” More specifically, Agribank has explained: “India, Vietnam, Thailand, China and Ecuador are respectively the largest shrimp suppliers to Canada.”

And while it does not appear that Canadian companies are involved in shrimp farming in Guatemala, The Chronicle Herald reported in 2019: “[Saint John-based] Cooke Inc. says it has acquired Seajoy Seafood Corp., which farms shrimp in Honduras and Nicaragua.”

We continue to follow this.

Further reading: Pacific Coast Communities Confront Shrimp Farm Threat (NACLA, September 25, 2007) and Guatemala’s sugar cartel (El Faro, April 2017).