Shrimp farms in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu have proliferated despite a 1996 Supreme Court judgement to regulate coastal aquaculture. Given an option, I would move away from this village to nearby Chidambaram town because, year after year, the fertility of my agricultural land declines.” This was told to us by a lamenting farmer concerned about the expansion of shrimp farms in Pichavaram, a village situated near the backwaters and mangroves of Cuddalore district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. In the neighbouring fishing village of Thandavarayancholaganpettai (T.S. Pettai), a fisher echoed a similar sentiment when he complained about the menial jobs he undertook in the Middle East for 15 years because, as he put it, “shrimp farms had polluted the adjacent Uppanar river and the fish resources within it.”