Overfishing and sea cucumber smuggling are damaging the biodiversity and livelihoods of Sri Lankan fishermen.
After sunset in Jaffna, Anthony Vigrado dived into the waters of Palk Bay to catch sea cucumbers – a prickly skin creature that has grown in value and has been his main source of income for the past 12 years.
But after 10 hours of searching, what he got is a fraction of what he used to be. The reason is that sea cucumbers have been extensively exploited in the northern coasts of Sri Lanka and southern India.
Treasures of the sea
“Illegal fishermen are fishing illegally in the places where we often dive for sea cucumbers. We are losing income and a livelihood for them, ”said the 31-year-old fisherman.
Sea cucumbers are echinoderms with a soft, tubular body resembling a vegetable of the same name. Photo: Guardian.
Sea cucumbers are echinoderms with a soft, tubular body resembling a vegetable of the same name. They are an unusual animal but play an important role in the marine ecosystem. When they eat debris in sediments, they regenerate nutrients and excrete nitrogen, ammonia and calcium carbonate – components that make up coral reefs. Sea cucumber also helps slow ocean acidification due to human activity.
The demand for sea cucumbers is huge in China and Southeast Asian countries, where they are processed into delicious dishes and used in traditional remedies. Dried sea cucumber is called calche-de-mer or trepang. They are also considered by many, especially China, an aphrodisiac.
This has made the sea cucumber trade become “super profitable”. Therefore, this animal is in danger of extinction. In the 1980s, sea cucumber was priced below 70 USD / kg, now the price has increased to more than 270 USD / kg. The rare species cost up to nearly 3,500 USD / kg.
Over the years, sea cucumbers in Palk Bay and Mannar Bay are overfished. For the most expensive species, the number of individuals has dropped by more than 60% globally.
Fishermen harvested sea cucumbers caught on Mannar Bay. Photo: Guardian.
Now, this tiny tropical island has become a hotspot for smuggling and illegal sea cucumber fishing. Like Vigrado, more than 10,000 fishing families living along Sri Lanka’s north coast are anxious about their livelihoods.
Chamari Dissanayake, Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Sri Jayewardenepura University in Sri Lanka, said: “The number of sea cucumbers is plummeting due to overfishing. It affects the biodiversity and the livelihoods of coastal fishermen who have long depended on this profession ”.
Vigrado said many illegal fishing boats damaged the facilities and equipment of local fishermen to catch sea cucumbers, causing some people to commit suicide because they could not pay the debt.
“They are grabbing everything”
AM Stanny Lambert, a 31-year-old fisherman from Vankalai in Mannar, said he was sad and angry at these crimes.
“It was unethical and we were stuck, because they were doing everything in front of us,” he said. Lambert and his father have been licensed to fish for 11 years and are the breadwinner of the family.
Most reported offenses take advantage of different regulations from neighboring countries. While Sri Lanka issued fishing permits and permits the export of sea cucumbers, India has completely banned all trade in these animals since 2001.
As a result, sea cucumbers are illegally caught in India and smuggled into Sri Lanka, where they are legally exported to Southeast Asia, or exported from India under fake labels.
Marine animal protection forces in Lakshadweep Islands, India seized 486 sea cucumbers died in March 2021. Photo: Lakshadweep Forest Management Board.
In August 2020, three men were caught smuggling nearly 1,000 kg of sea cucumber from Tamil Nadu in India to Sri Lanka via Mannar Bay. The Indian Coast Guard priced these sea cucumbers to nearly $ 700,000 in the international market. A similar case was reported in March 2021.
Teale Phelps Bondaroff, research director at OceansAsia, an organization that recently mapped sea cucumber arrests and seizures in the two countries, said: “If you have a legitimate market near a market, illegal, legal markets will become huge “fish wash” dens.
Exhausted
For many years, the Sri Lankan and Indian authorities have worked to combat this type of marine crime. But the growing number of arrests shows that illegal trade is spreading to areas that have never been affected before.
Nowadays, as the value of animals is increasing, exploitation is also becoming more common. Great demand for sea cucumbers has led to deadly violence in Mexico, related to yakuza criminal organizations in Japan, and smuggling between Tanzania and Zanzibar.
According to OceansAsia, the network of organized sea cucumber fishing and smuggling criminals is spreading from the Palk Bay and Mannar Bay into untapped areas of the Lakshadweep alliance, an archipelago off the west coast. South India.
Wild island of Suheli in Lakshadweep. Photo: Guardian.
In the largest recorded arrest, disclosure from local fishermen in February 2020 helped authorities find 1,716 sea cucumbers worth nearly $ 580,000 hidden in nearby coral reefs. Suheli deserted island.
“Resource depletion may be the main reason these people are looking for new locations. Lakshadweep is still pristine, which may be why merchants moved there, ”said Sajan John, head of the Marine Projects and Policy Management Unit at Wildlife Trust of India.
Realizing the seriousness of the crime of selling sea cucumbers, the local government reacted strongly. In February 2020, the world’s first sea cucumbers conservation area was established in Lakshadweep, anti-theft bases were established across the islands and Lakshadweep Sea cucumber Protection Task Force was established. established with the help of the Central Bureau of Investigation of India.
A batch of 416 dead sea cucumbers was seized on a deserted island off Perumal in Lakshadweep in March 2021. Photo: Lakshadweep Forest Management Board.
“The people of Lakshadweep understand the importance of sea cucumber because their livelihood depends on fishing. When sea cucumbers are affected, other fisheries are also affected, ”said Sivakumar Kuppusamy, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Wildlife.
But as the majority of illegally-caught and trafficked sea cucumbers continue to be smuggled into Sri Lanka, Kuppusamy agrees that while it is important to stop this illegal supply chain, educate the fighters. Illegally catching sea cucumbers correctly appreciates the importance of this animal is also important to protect them.
“We have to convince them of the role of sea cucumber in the ecosystem. Without sea cucumbers, they are jeopardizing the sea, ”he said. “That’s when they begin to realize that their livelihoods and their children’s futures will be affected.”
“Break that illegal supply chain and convince the fishermen – we have to do both. If not, this business will continue to grow ”.
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