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PAPUA NEW GUINEASEA CUCUMBER (BECHE-DE-MER)

Today the BDM fishery is the most valuable coastal fishery in PNG and is the second biggest export earner for PNG after tuna, contributing over 100 million kinas in export revenue. About 40 million kina goes directly into pockets of our coastal and island communities annually. In fact the BDM fishery is the single most important coastal Fishery that supports Coastal and Island Communities' livelihood through revenue generation. 


 

PNG developed the first management plan for the fishery in 1992, following the commercial inception in 1990. Since then, the fishery has undergone numerous transitions in management regimes to remain relevant to the increasing economic value, licensing requirements and the compliance aspects in the fishery over time. Despite the efforts put in developing the various iterations of the previous management plan, the fishery still operated under a management framework that lacked robustness in monitoring leading to extensive overfishing and localised depletion with the fishery not meeting the objectives set out in the management plan. The fishery was closed in late 2009, to allow the sea cucumber spawning population to recover. 

 

During the closure period, NFA initially conducted annual sea cucumber stock assessment in eight provinces and gradually expanded the survey to cover other areas to monitor the sea cucumber population recovery. The monitoring results indicated poor recovery patterns with a low density and localised depletion of sea cucumber population stocks that led to the extension of the fishery. In 2017, the fishery was opened with a new management plan gazetted in 2016. Despite good management strategies in the BDM fishery Management plan, the fishers and relevant stakeholders' lack of awareness and adap­tion of revised management resulted in implementation of the plan not so effective. Once more, a revised plan was developed and gazetted in 2018 as G369 and is currently enforced. However, this will be further reviewed to accommodate the issues of the 2020 season. 

 

In recognizing the importance of the fishery and further considering the localised depletion of stocks occurring from within the coastal waters of PNG over the years, a three-year fishery closure was imposed for 2021 and 2024. The two-year closure period of the fishery was requested to allow sufficient time for recovery after stocks were depleted and also give ample time for work to be undertaken to strengthen the management framework for the sea cucumber fishery. A number of key program areas have been identified for work to be progressed. 

 

Programmes: 

  1. Stock Assessment Surveys 

  2. Harvest Strategy Development

  3. BDM Management Plan Review

  4. Fishery Monitoring Mobile Application 

  5. Shrinkage Study

  6. Development of NDF for the CITES listed sea cucumber species

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