TED Case Studies
BENGALI FROG LEGS EXPORT AND USES OF
PESTICIDES
CASE MNEMONIC: BANGFROG
CASE NAME: Bengali Frog Exports and Impact on the Environment
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I. Identification
1. The Issue
Frog legs have become a fad all over the world. Doral Chenoweth
of the Dispatch Restaurant Reviewer gave a review of the
Fisherman's Wharf restaurant in May of 1998. The reviewer
displayed on the internet the Grump's Sampler in which one could
find a wide variety of seafood gourmet plates. The most
interesting one was the frog leg entree displayed as such "Frog
legs: baby legs, tender, the ultimate white meat sautTed on the
bones; experience a mix of herb in lemon-garlic butter.These are
fresh from Canada, not Bangladesh, the origin of most of the
larger frog legs served around Columbus; $15.95."
It only cost $15.95 ( US dollars on average) to satisfy the gastronomic taste of many individuals around the globe for frog legs. These legs come from a variety of places either from the wild or raised in special farms. Most of the wild frogs come from Bangladesh, India and Indonesia. The farmed ones come from Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Indonesia. As a result, disappearance of the frog race has occurred in a variety of places across the world such as in the United States, Australia, Bangladesh and Costa Rica. The importance of frog legs as a food item in France has apparently been linked to a marked decline in native frogs in Europe, India, and Bangladesh.
The demand for frog legs in France is tremendous: the French eat 3000 to 4000 tones of them a year. Some 20,000 frogs must be sacrificed in order to supply a single tone of legs.
A contradiction lies between trade, environment and culture. In Bangladesh exporting frog legs by disseminating thousands of amphibians (nature's pesticides) to sustain a national economy, satisfy cultures with a growing affinity for exotic dishes while importing tones of artificial pesticides. Should environmental issues take precedence over gastronomic pleasures or trade issues? Should trade be sacrificed in order to salvage the amphibian population of Bangladesh? Can a temporary ban on export destroy the reality of illegal poaching and export?
2. Description
The Process of Acquiring the Legs
Frog legs have a mild flavor and are delicious fried or sauteed . However, the process of acquiring the legs is long and crucial. Indeed, the frog's legs are removed either at or below the pelvis after harvesting. Product that contains flesh above the pelvis is termed "saddle-on". This is less preferable than the "saddle-off" product because of a lower yield to the food service operator. Saddle-on frog legs also lose a size in trimming. All frog legs, whether saddle-on or -off, are skinless. Aquacultured frog legs are lighter in color and milder in taste than wild. They are also cleaner. This is a major issue, as wild frog legs are susceptible to contamination with salmonella.
The Consequences of the Trade Policy
A new study revealed that export of thousand of frogs have caused pesticides sales to soar in Bangladesh combined with inadequate policing of regulations, coupled with aggressive marketing that underplays the dangers of the pesticides involved.
Researchers at the Institute of Development Policy Analysis found banned and suspect pesticides among the 12,000 tones imported into the country last year, a three-fold increase over the last decade that is eating into the country's foreign exchange reserves. Suppliers continue to sell many chemical substances proscribed by the government, and also 12 particularly controversial pesticides dubbed the ''dirty dozen'' by activists campaigning worldwide to stop its manufacture.
3. Related Cases
Frog4. Draft Author:
II. Legal
Clusters
5. Discourse and Status:
The Bangladesh Pesticides Rule states that ''no person shall import, manufacture, formulate, repack, sale hold in stock, or in any other manner advertise any brand of pesticides which has not been registered.'' But gullible and illiterate farmers are persuaded by glib sales talk at promotional camps and through incentive schemes to buy new unregistered formulations that promise to protect crops against pest attacks and disease. The WHO and the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) say that poor countries like Bangladesh do not have the necessary resources and infrastructure to adequately regulate the use and availability of pesticides.
6. Forum and Scope:
To date, nearly 30 frog species around the world are extinct or endangered -- not only victim to gourmet appetites, but also to drought, chemical fertilizers, acid rain, pollution, ozone destruction and various development schemes. In fact, Friend of the Earth member groups have campaigned on a wide variety of trade-related environmental and social issues, focusing in particular on international trade in specific commodities and products, including Soya and grains, bananas, minerals, toxic waste, ozone depleting substances, timber and other endangered species, and genetic material in general. It helped persuade the Bangladeshi government that frog trade was economic and environmental suicide. Many plant and animal species are protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES).
7. Decision Breadth:
Appendix I listing of CITES prevents commercial trade in live animals, their parts or derivatives; Appendix II permits trade under certain controls; and an Appendix III listing allows trade only with an export permit from the country listing the animal, or a certificate of origin from a country that did not list it.
Thailand frequently violates the Conventions, as does Indonesia. A biological study among the CITES parties revealed that Indonesia often lies, in one instance doctoring a quota of CITES II tortoises from seven up to seven thousand. Food, medicinal, and pet industries are mingled in Asia and deception is rampant. Many CITES conventions are frequently flouted by the parties throug rerouting of shipments to non-participating countries.
8. Legal Standing: Non-Governmental Organization
In the 1980s, poor Bangladeshi farmers were compelled to buy expensive imported pesticides, because of the huge number of insectivorous frogs being exported to restaurants in rich, industrialized countries. In Bangladesh, frog legs export was the largest category of export after shrimp before restrictions were temporarily passed in 1989 and lasted until 1992.
Since the ban was imposed, and despite the fact that illegal trade still continues, frog populations have been replenished and pesticide imports have dropped by up to 40 percent. However, both pesticide and frog traders have been pressuring the Bangladeshi government to lift the ban. They argue that the country is losing some $30 US million per year in foreign exchange earnings, and have managed to obtain control of part of the press to further their cause. The disappearance of frogs is, in fact, a global phenomena.
III. Geographic
Clusters
9. Geographic Locations
a. Geographic Domain: Asia
b. Geographic Site: South East Asia [SEASIA]
c. Geographic Impact: Western Europe, United States, Asia [WE/US/ASIA]
10. Sub-National Factors:
NO11. Type of Habitat:
TROPICAL
IV. Trade
Clusters
12. Type of Measure:
IMPORT and EXPORT [IMBAN/EXBAN]A temporary export ban was imposed in 1989 and extended until 1992. This had immediate effects such as a 40% decline in pesticide imports and an increase in frog population. However, Friends of the Earth is concerned about a joint proposal by the Department of Forestry and the Wildlife Society of Bangladesh to breed frogs artificially for commercial purposes. Friends of the Earth fears that the farm-produced frogs will be indistinguishable from natural frogs, and that the extinction of the latter could continue unimpeded.
13. Direct v. Indirect Impacts:
DIRECT14. Relation of Trade Measure to Environmental Impact
Suppliers promoting trade with missionary zeal gloss over the health and environmental consequences of pesticide overuse despite established risks. The intensive use of DDT is now blamed for the resurgence of malaria in parts of the world. Similarly Aldrin and Endrin, both insecticides, classified as ''highly hazardous'' by the World Health Organization (WHO), are sold under various labels in Bangladesh.
The onus in each case is on the purchaser to find out the harmful effects of the substance that is being bought. Suppliers pack the pesticides in insoluble containers -- quite often in bottles -- to attract the farmers who use the bottles and other containers for different domestic purposes without realizing the health hazards.
a. Directly Related to Product: YES FROGS
b. Indirectly Related to Product: NO
c. Not Related to Product: NO
d. Related to Process: YES Species Loss [SPLL]
15. Trade Product Identification:
FOOD AND PESTICIDES16. Economic Data
As one of the world's poorest and most densely populated countries, Bangladesh must struggle constantly to produce domestically and import from abroad enough food to feed its rapidly increasing population. As result, in the 1980s Bangladesh emerged suddenly and dramatically as a major producer of shrimp, frog legs, and fish for export. Fresh and frozen shrimp accounted for two-thirds of Bangladesh's seafood exports in the mid-1980s.
Indeed, The seafood industry's sudden success resulted primarily from private entrepreneurial initiatives, in response to a hospitable international market. Thus, over the past decades, Bangladesh has earned foreign currency by exporting frogs legs. Over 50 million Bangladeshi frogs' legs were leaving the country each year at the end of the 1980s; by the end of the decade, there were believed to be only 400 million frogs left in the country. Bangladesh was importing 25 percent more pesticides each year, partly as a substitute for the lost frogs. And the trade was an economic loss as well: $30 US million were being spent on pesticides per year to bring in only $10 million from the trade in frogs' legs.
17. Impact of Trade Restriction:
HIGH18. Industry Sector:
FOOD19. Exporters and Importers:
BANGLADESH AND MANYThe natural resources to support a growing fisheries sector are abundant, including enormous potential to develop inland water bodies, as well as even greater productive areas of coastal and offshore waters. The United States, Belgium, and Britain were major buyers with the United States being one of the prime customer for Bangladeshi frog legs. Frog legs export was the largest category of export after shrimp before restrictions were temporarily passed in 1990. The ban on frog legs export resulted because poor Bangladeshi farmers were compelled to buy expensive imported pesticides to replace the huge number of insectivorous frogs being exported to restaurants in rich, industrialized countries.
V. Environment
Clusters
20. Environmental Problem Type:
Loss of Species and High uses of pesticides.Even though,they are very adaptable creatures that can survive some of the harshest conditions this world has to offer, yet, frog populations are rapidly declining. Many species are on the verge of extinction. Due to pollution, be it toxic or chemical, their habitats are being destroyed and the ecosystem which support them is transforming .
21. Name, Type, and Diversity of Species
Name: Rana catesbeina
Type: Animal\Metozoa\Deuteros\Chordata\Vertobr\Reptile
Diversity:
The Frog and its Environment:
Frogs are classified as amphibians. Amphibians are creatures that spend
most of their lives in water but can also survive on land. Frogs
are no exception, for they are born in water, spend most of their
lives in aquatic habitats, but can also hunt for food and shelter
on dry ground. They are one of the planet's most adaptable
creatures. There are thousands of frogs species, and they can be
found all over the world.
Most frogs choose to spend their lives in ponds and streams in the tropics. Others, though, only need the moisture found on leaves and under logs to survive.
In the summer of 1996, deformed frogs were reported all over the state. By the end of the year, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) had gotten more than 175 reports of deformed frogs, in two-thirds of Minnesota's counties. Late that summer, we began hearing that deformed frogs were being found in other states as well, even in other countries.
Why are we concerned about the deformed frogs?
Frog populations around the world have showed increasing signs of stress in recent years. Some species have disappeared, and others are no longer found where they used to be. An increase in deformities may be a sign that something is wrong.
Scientists are concerned about what's happening to the frogs, because the health of frogs is closely linked to the health of the environment. Frogs are sensitive to pollution, because they live at the meeting of two environments -- land and water -- and they can easily absorb pollutants through their skin.Just as miners used canaries in the mines to alert them to poisonous gases, frogs may alert us to problems in our environment.
22. Resource Impact and Effect:
MEDIUM23. Urgency and Lifetime:
MEDIUM24. Substitutes:
CONSERVATION [CONSV]
VI. Other Factors
25. Culture:
YESSome Moslems say that according to Islamic teaching frogs are "haram" or unclean, and not to be eaten. This issue was debated among the Moslem population and it was decided that Moslems could breed frogs but could not eat them.
26. Trans-Boundary Issues:
NO27. Rights:
YES28. Relevant Literature
Bangladesh: Economic Policy and Trade Practices Report (1997)[ U.S. Department of Commerce- National Trade Data Bank, June 1998.]
Bangladesh: Chapter 3C Natural Resources, Countries of the World, 01-01-1991
Chenoweth, Doral " The Grumpy Gourmet," Dispatch Restaurant reviewer (May 1998)
Islam, Tabibul, Pesticide Overuse Takes Serious Turn, Friend of the Earth (Jan 23)
Russell, Ronald and Hechnar, Stephen J., The Ghost of Pesticides Past?
Tyning, Thomas F. Amphibians and Reptiles. Little, Brown and Company (1991)
Vidal, John "Asian Frog Export Short Hop to Ruin" The Ottawa Citizen (July 1994)
Watchel, Paul " In a Stew over Frog Legs" International Wildlife References ( June 1985)
The U.S. Fish:Wildlife Service,tries to monitor trade inillegal species,The Bridge, December 1996/January-February 1997)
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