Surge in demand puts pressure on resource

Dr Kim Friedman and L Gisawa
The Pacific Islands are bordered to the west and east by the Barrier Reef of Australia and the rocky reef shorelines of the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.

Despite these two iconic systems having well financed fisheries management, both have recorded marked declines in their stocks of sea cucumbers. Declines that were serious enough to warrant fishery closures. Today, with 23% of the world’s population living in China, the biggest market for dried sea cucumbers (bêche-de-mer), and a continual upsurge in demand for sea cucumber products, these fisheries are under greater pressure than ever.

In the Pacific, this fishery has come a long way since the 1700 and 1800s when ships would periodically visit our fishing grounds to work with communities to catch and process single shipments of sea cucumbers.

Especially since the mid-1980s, increased market opportunity has seen a revolution in the momentum of sea cucumber harvesting activities, with a move from shallow water gleaning by communities to situations where teams of divers are contracted on wages to act at the bidding of marine product agents. Even the catch that was once processed and dried in villages thereby retaining post harvest value, is now often handled by agents who prefer to purchase wet product to process sea cucumbers themselves.

Increased fishing, both over the years and across the fishery, means that now few reef areas retain sea cucumbers at densities high enough to reproduce successfully and the remaining adults are too scattered to produce the juveniles to fuel future harvests.

Through the inability of fishers to select and process the high grade product that is sought by the market, the value is dwindling along with the stock. Lower incomes per piece are driving fishers to harvest sea cucumbers more and more aggressively, setting up a vicious cycle.

The tragedy is that sea cucumber fisheries have the potential to power village economies in medium to large islands states with incomes derived from foreign currency, a valuable commodity where opportunities to generate income can be difficult to find.

But, like falling dominoes, we have been almost unable to stop the declines in our sea cucumber fisheries as marine product agents move and open new areas when traditional fisheries become less productive.

We can see the signs of these fisheries stalling in many of our own countries. First, there is the increase in effort, then an increase in the numbers of species targetted as the most valuable species and sizes disappear...terminating in catches comprising low value product of small size.

In the 1990s, Tonga made the decisive move to protect the fishery after it declined and a zero quota on exports was recommended. Then more recently the Solomon Islands (2006) and Vanuatu (starting in 2008) made the wise move of protecting the resources that remained with a ban on exports.

Who is next to use the blunt but effective management tool of moratorium to allow recovery in their stocks?

To assist us in understanding the fishery, we now have in-water information collected by the research bodies of our National Fisheries Authorities and SPC, from 17 countries and territories (PROCFish/C and COFish programmes, funded by the European Union). These surveys show just how far below the estimated ‘original’ densities sea cucumbers have now fallen in some of the most productive fishing grounds of the Pacific and allow us to gauge what needs to be done to restore these fisheries.

In PNG, where 10% of the annual world supply of wild stock has been collected, a recent survey by the National Fisheries Department (NFA) showed that approximately 80% of the high value product bound for export markets from the Western Province was below the minimum legal size.

A similar situation occurs in Fiji. Sadly, this means that large productive areas are not only overfished, but the fishery is now harvesting what is left before it has a chance to mature into a more valuable product, or produce young for future harvests.

An ecosystem overview reveals this overfishing is removing the “cleaners” and “sweepers” of our inshore environment (sea cucumbers feed on detritus, algae and waste on the bottom).

The jury is still out on what the environmental effects will be, but anecdotal reports from village leaders suggest the role sea cucumbers play in “cleaning the bottom” is starting to be missed.

So what lies ahead for the productivity of our sea cucumber fisheries and the related health of our inshore systems? Prospects for the future are not all grim. The work of regional Fisheries Research Officers and SPC shows that species in themselves are not being lost, they are just declining to a point where they cannot support viable fisheries.

Countries like Tonga which recognised early declines and allowed their stocks to rebuild are now in the enviable position of being able to enter the market again. They can look to other countries for ideas on how best to manage this valuable resource by “seeing what is and isn’t working”, and use their fresh opportunity to deliver long-term benefits to fishers by maintaining productivity in the fishery.

Mexico was in a similar situation to Tonga. After six years of closure, it reopened the fishery, but instituted ‘area rights’ to fishers with an overarching licensing system issued by government. Joint monitoring requirements were part of annual renewal conditions, to ensure that fishing areas were not depleted beyond mutually agreed limits in the previous season.

What is the answer for the Pacific? What is the way to keep the hungry markets from forcing these fisheries into early retirement when they have the capacity to bring long- term benefits right to the people who have so few other options?

Pacific countries could jointly agree on medium and long term goals for this fishery, and set in place a multi stage-plan to educate fishers about the potential, and introduce new mechanisms to rebuild stocks, to achieve joint aims. This plan will require the institution of market information systems which highlight the value of these species across the Pacific, communication on what these species need to reproduce, and how they can be managed sustainably. It will also require community and government controls on fishing and market access. This fishery may well need a regional agreement to ensure buying agents don’t ‘divide and conquer’ to undermine management initiatives.

We must also put our energies behind new opportunities. Sandfish (Holothuria scabra), a high value member of the 20-30 species fishery is beginning to look like a promising option for aquaculture. Although not in successful commercial production as yet, we need to see if areas lost to this species can again become productive, before we fall into the position India presently finds itself. In India, they are presently unable to locate sufficient broodstock to even begin a successful breeding programme, so hard hit was their fishery.

At current production levels, sea cucumbers fisheries in Fiji, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia are taking between 19% to 32% of what their national tuna fleets catch in their EEZs (by wet weight of catch). Therefore this fishery is not just a provider of income to rural coastal communities, it also represents a large part of our resource production. And the challenge is also large.

Although the inshore fisheries sector is recognised as critically important, it does not receive anywhere the resources and manpower of its stable-brother, the oceanic fisheries sector. The varied and segmented nature of the inshore fishery sector also makes it easy for initiatives to falter due to the difficulty of enforcement.

However, unlike some other coastal resources, dried sea cucumber needs to travel through the front door when it is exported, which allows for relatively comprehensive inspection at just a few ports. This is a fishery where we can stem the decline and embrace new initiatives. The market is there, and growing. We just need to get together around a recovery plan, to ensure the long-term benefits reach our coastal communities and their inshore environments.

• Dr Friedman is a senior reef fisheries scientist at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community, Noumea, New Caledonia (kimf@spc.int) and L Gisawa is a senior benthic resources scientist at the National Fisheries Authority, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.