She helped turn many of world's prawn farmers into millionaires, but Jurgenne Primavera now worries that her life's work might have indirectly accelerated the destruction of fish nurseries. The Filipino zoologist, whose research on breeding the black tiger prawn became a manual that revolutionized the aquaculture industry, pointed at 66 hectares of brackish water fishponds at the bottom of a windy bluff in Calatagan, Batangas. Despite cheap government loans and generous land leases in the 1970s, prawn culture failed to reach its full potential in the Philippines, where the ponds turned out to be better suited for growing milkfish, says Primavera of the Philippines-based Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center.

Morella, C. (2008, April 11). The dark side of prawn farming. Manila Standard, p. A2.