WASHINGTON, May 1: The United States said on Wednesday it had barred shrimp imports from Haiti but authorized sales from 41 countries and Hong Kong whose fishing practices it said posed no threat to sea turtles.

Shrimp from Haiti and other nations that harvest shrimp in ways harmful to turtles are subject to an embargo, consistent with the US legislation, the State Department said in a statement.

The law requires that commercial shrimp boats use a mechanism know as a “turtle excluder device,” (TED) which prevents the accidental deaths of already endangered sea turtles snared in shrimping operations.

The department said shrimp boats from 17 nations were found to have met the TED standard: Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Surinam, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.

Twenty-four other nations plus Hong Kong were certified as having fishing environments that do not pose a threat to sea turtles.

They are: Argentina, Belgium, the Bahamas, Canada, Chile, China, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Fiji, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Iceland, Ireland, Jamaica, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Peru, Russia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.—AFP