CT-TNC-WWF: A Common Vision for Ecuadorian Shrimp Aquaculture

By the end of 2025, Conservation International (CI), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) undertook the challenge of developing, through a participatory approach, a shared vision for sustainable shrimp production in Ecuador, incorporating key references at the global, national, and local levels. This vision is grounded in an analysis of the shrimp farming sector in the country and recognizes the diversity of stakeholders involved, with different roles, needs, and interests.

The following vision, completed in March 2026, is the result of this collaborative effort:

Synthetic vision

By 2040, Ecuador's shrimp sector will be a global benchmark for sustainable aquaculture production, adopting and implementing best practices in production, environmental, social, and climate change adaptation and mitigation throughout the value chain, promoting economic competitiveness while ensuring a neutral or positive impact on ecosystems and effectively contributing to social welfare.

Enlarged vision

The shrimp farming sector operates in a way that respects fragile ecosystems, without negatively impacting critical habitats, directly or indirectly, protecting and restoring mangroves, not polluting water bodies, and progressively reducing greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, moving towards verifiable neutrality through the adoption of clean technologies, renewable energies, energy efficiency, productive innovation, and resilience to the effects of climate variability and change.

Shrimp farms are a driving force in the local and national economy, generating decent employment, adding value and productive linkages, respecting human and labor rights and the rights of nature, and promoting a more equitable distribution of benefits among the various actors in the sector, including small, medium and large producers, workers and coastal communities.

The shared vision drives the reduction of technological and productive gaps within the sector, promoting continuous improvement, knowledge transfer and access to appropriate financial mechanisms that facilitate a fair transition towards sustainability, without compromising the competitiveness of the sector or excluding actors with lower capabilities.

Sustainable Ecuadorian shrimp is establishing itself as a reliable and differentiated product in international markets, acting as a bridge between consumers who demand sustainable products and producers committed to complying with national legislation, protecting biodiversity, reducing emissions and respecting human rights, actively contributing to global food security and the country's climate commitments.

This vision is based on collaborative governance, which involves collaboration between the productive sector, communities, the State, civil society, and the market. It recognizes the ecological and social limits of the territory, strengthens trust, and positions sustainability as a long-term strategic asset for the development of Ecuador's shrimp sector. TNC also works with small producers, promoting the shift towards more sustainable practices in shrimp farming.

Additional information

Since 2023, Conservation International (CI) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have been implementing the Ecuador Sustainable Shrimp Jurisdictional Initiative, which applies a sector transformation approach that goes beyond the scale of the individual shrimp farm and operates at the level of the productive territory (jurisdiction), integrating small, medium, and large producers, communities, authorities, as well as the financial and commercial sectors. Its central objective is to align shrimp production with shared environmental, social, and economic sustainability goals, reducing systemic risks and preventing progress from relying solely on individual certifications.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been implementing the North Star Shrimp project since 2024. This initiative aims to reduce the environmental and climate footprint of shrimp production while strengthening productive efficiency and the sector’s economic resilience. Unlike the territorial approach of the jurisdictional initiative, North Star primarily operates along the shrimp value chain, with a particular focus on medium and large producers who have greater capacity to adopt and scale solutions, generating replicable lessons for the sector as a whole.