WCS 3-Sentence Science

Farming Sea Cucumbers

July 14, 2019

Credit: Sangeeta Mangubhai/WCS

Each year, Wildlife Conservation Society scientists publish more than 300 peer-reviewed studies and papers. “WCS 3-Sentence Science” is a regular tip-sheet — in bite sized helpings — of some of this published work.

Here we present work by WCS’s Sven Frijlink on farming sea cucumbers:

1. The dried body wall of sea cucumber is a valuable marine export commodity in Papua New Guinea (PNG), but overfishing led the National Fisheries Authority (NFA) to impose a moratorium on the fishery in October 2009.
2. The fishery was reopened in 2017 for less than two months, yet dominated the economies of three fishing communities while it was open generating increased income and high consumption of store-bought foods and purchase of other assets intended to increase living standards.
3. Drawing on current understandings of local culture and political economy, together with the results from the 2017 wild sea cucumber fishery, researchers discuss how a livelihood based on holothuriculture (farming of sea cucumbers) could coexist with the wild fishery to increase benefits to coastal communities in PNG.

Study and Journal: “Socioeconomic impacts of a sea cucumber fishery in Papua New Guinea: Is there an opportunity for mariculture?” from Ocean & Coastal
WCS Co-Author(s): Sven Frijlink, Technical Advisor , WCS PNG Program

For more information, contact: Stephen Sautner, 718–220–3682, ssautner@wcs.org.