AUCKLAND, New Zealand – A race to harvest one of the world’s oddest looking marine delicacies is causing concern about environmental damage inflicted in the South Pacific.
Soaring demand for the sea cucumber, a seabed dwelling invertebrate also known as bêche-de-mer and trepang, is driving record prices in China’s luxury food market. One species, the Pacific sandfish, was selling recently in Hong Kong for US$1,668 (S$2301) a kilo, while the Japanese spiky sea cucumber can go for US$2,950 a kilo. Other species sell for between US$15 and US$385 a kilo, depending on size and condition.
Harvesting these lucrative but unappealing animals is becoming more difficult as stocks decline, prompting claims that overfishing is causing environmental damage and that divers’ lives are being put at risk. A controversial commercial contract with a Chinese company recently sparked protests on Pohnpei, part of the usually sleepy Federated States of Micronesia.
Steven Purcell, a sea cucumber expert at Australia’s Southern Cross University, said Pacific stocks had “all declined considerably” over a decade. Purcell and six other scientists said in a recent article in the academic journal Fish and Fisheries that sea cucumber stocks may have “succumbed to pandemic overfishing.”
There are around 1,700 species of sea cucumber, of which 66 are used for food. Boiled and dried, the animal becomes known by its French name, bêche-de-mer — a dish rich in protein, minerals and fatty acids. In China the animal is a traditional remedy for hypertension, asthma, rheumatism, cuts and burns, impotence and constipation.
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