World Aquaculture Day: Meet the River Shrimp Sustainable Development Program

Lima, November 2022 — Every November 30th is World Aquaculture Day. This activity is responsible for the cultivation of fish, crustaceans, mollusks, and algae, which are important sources of the world's most efficient proteins. To meet the challenge of maintaining current food security, production must be doubled.

In this context, some programs seek to protect inland aquatic species that may be harmed by indiscriminate fishing, such as Celepsa's "Sustainable Development Program for River Shrimp," which seeks to prevent shrimp fishing during their reproductive period by enforcing the closed season and allowing the birth of more than 1.5 million of these crustaceans this year in Cañete.

"Since 2003, we have been working to raise awareness among the people of Cañete, where we have operations, particularly small entrepreneurs, restaurant owners, tourists, and other local stakeholders, about the importance of not fishing during the shrimp breeding season, known as the closed season," said Ana Muñoz, Development and Hydrobiological Innovation Coordinator at Celepsa, an Unacem Group company.

The program is in charge of monitoring, raising awareness of good fishing practices, and controlling and monitoring this species during the closed season and commercial period with the help of shrimp farmers and access to fiscal and police intervention in collaboration with GORE Lima's Production Department. In this way, illegal methods of catching this species, such as the use of baskets and the use of poison, are controlled and avoided, as is its consumption.

"We received the National Environmental Award in the Biodiversity Management category for promoting better handling and responsible management of Cañete's shrimp resource. Although shrimp have been subjected to intense extraction due to the COVID-19 crisis, populations have remained stable," added Muñoz.

This year, the program seized 543 baskets, totaling more than 6.5 tons of shrimp (each basket has a catch capacity of about 12 kg), with breeding females accounting for 80% of the catch.

We should also mention that this initiative has resulted in the birth of 1,410,594 juvenile river shrimp and 2,097,376 shrimp between 2019 and 2020, which has had a positive impact on the species' productivity and the development of the aquatic ecosystem along the Cañete River,  building the path to its sustainability.