Papua New Guinea: a hotspot of sea cucumber fisheries in the Western Central Pacific

Management of the sea cucumber fishery in PNG was recognized as necessary after catches declined from the fishery's inception in the nineteenth century. Today, the NFA is responsible for the conservation and management of PNG's sea cucumber fishery. It has gazetted the National Beche-de-mer Management Plan in 2001, which aims to maximize the long-term economic benefits from the fishery while ensuring resource and environmental sustainability. Despite the national management plan, PNG still faces difficulties in enforcement and compliance. The two most continual infringements reported to the NFA involve the illegal buying of beche-de-mer and seizure in urban centres. There are also occasional discrepancies between export figures and the import figures from Asian markets. Factors that contribute to management problems include the remoteness of fishers and the limited human and financial resources of provincial fisheries offices. Moreover, export volumes continue to rise as fishers are collecting large quantities of low-value species. There is growing awareness by fishers that sea cucumbers are no longer abundant. Past stock assessments have been largely independent of each other and used differing methodologies and scales, making it difficult to see changes in abundance over time.