The May 1 US embargo on shrimp imports from Bangladesh sounds arbitrary despite being courtesy-coated. This has been handed prematurely. too. While a minor adaptation has been suggested to overcome the ban after taking due note of the favourable side to our shrimp culture, one wonders why the desired modification was not allowed time before slapping the embargo.

There cannot be any second opinion about the dire need to protect sea turtles where these are endangered ^s a wasteful and environmentally unfriendly by-catch to the hauling of shrimp. But to delist Bangladesh in a global application of a US standard requiring its trawlers to employ the turtle-extruder devices (TEDs) is a shock administered to the country at a time of its severe export distress. Even the argument that a global approach has to be unchoosy between countries is no justification for its being applied in such a blanket fashion.

Bangladesh's aquaculture' is a specialised kind of shrimp-farming — with 'ghers' or encirclements — in which the sea turtles can be kept at bay. Where we have admittedly a real advantage is. however, this: We do not as a rule harvest shrimp in the wild so that the by-catch of sea turtles is essentially averted.

While we urge the US government, in view of the counter-vailing factors mentioned above, to withdraw the shrimp export ban forthwith, our basic advice, nonetheless, is directed homewards: let unplanned shrimp-farming, import of diseased fries and indiscriminate catching of them locally be stopped once and for all. We should be friendly to environment and ecology by our own volition rather than being told by others. The shrimp culture in general should be bailed out from the excessive lure of money to which most men in the business are currently falling prey.