Madagascar, Nigeria meet U.S. shrimp import requirement

Madagascar, Nigeria meet U.S. shrimp import requirement The U.S. State Department announced this week that Madagascar and Nigeria may export shrimp to the United States because they meet standards to ensure the protection of sea turtles.
   The chief component of the U.S. sea turtle conservation program is the requirement that commercial shrimp boats use sea turtle excluder devices (TEDs) to prevent the accidental drowning of sea turtles caught up in shrimp trawls.
   Madagascar and Nigeria join 14 other countries — Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Suriname and Venezuela — that meet this standard.
   The United States had temporarily decertified Nigeria, but the African country was reinstated after U.S. checks in September 2006 confirmed it met the standard. 'Nigeria is now enforcing its TEDs program in a credible manner,' the State Department said in a statement Wednesday.