Overview of sea cucumber aquaculture and stocking research in the Western Pacific region

Sea cucumbers represent an important income source to coastal communities in many Pacific islands, but is now worth only a fraction of historical values. Sea cucumbers have been harvested for hundreds of years for trade with Asia and were probably one of the first real ‘exports’ from the Pacific islands. Unfortunately, the increase in demand and price, combined with the development of cash economies and growing coastal populations in many islands, has led to widespread overfishing of the resource across much of this region. There is a high level of interest in adoption of aquaculture techniques to restore production levels, but different capacity levels require implementation of different techniques. Some Pacific island countries and territories have completed successful research trials of hatchery and release techniques, and now have capacity to scale up this activity. Factors that work in favour of successful aquaculture include pristine marine environments, long familiarity with sea cucumbers as a commodity, and traditional marine tenure systems that in some places can provide a basis for management of released sea cucumbers. Challenges include lack of technical capacity, unproven effectiveness of sea cucumber releases and poaching.