Latest news with #sea cucumber
Al Jazeera
2 days ago
- General
- Al Jazeera
The night divers seeking sea cucumbers and profits off West Africa's coast
In search of delicacies and profits off West Africa's coast. Omolade Jones with a sea cucumber [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Omolade Jones with a sea cucumber [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Banana Islands, Sierra Leone - As the sun dips below the horizon, Emmanuel Pratt tugs a worn cord and the outboard engine sputters to life. His wooden canoe, painted in white and faded blue, cuts through the darkening waters. Fruit bats screech overhead. Pratt, 35, is a seasoned sea cucumber diver from the Banana Islands - an archipelago home to about 500 people in Sierra Leone. For 15 years, he has made a living scouring the ocean floor for these creatures that resemble warty, oversized sea slugs. They hide in the silt by day and emerge at night to inch across the ocean floor, gobbling up decomposing matter. Also on the canoe, 25-year-old Omolade Jones - sweating in a half-zipped-up wetsuit - perches on the edge of the boat and gazes out at the dark water. After 10 minutes, the younger diver gestures at Pratt to cut the engine and readies himself to dive. Jones blows on his mask, grabs an underwater torch and wraps a breathing hose around his waist. The seabed surrounding the small, jungle-coated archipelago used to teem with sea cucumbers. Nowadays, they are scarce and scattered. Freediving is no longer an option. Pratt and Jones have to dive deeper, for longer, to find their catch. They have turned to 'hookah diving' - a makeshift system where air is pumped from a diesel-powered generator on the boat down through a plastic hose. It is a risky and fragile lifeline. The engines are often old and the air is easily contaminated by diesel fumes. And experts say it is much more dangerous than scuba or free diving. As the diesel engine that powers his air supply rattles in the boat, Jones quietly slips over the edge into the black water. The yellow hose trails behind him as he swims away from the canoe. Minutes later, his torch lights up a column of water above the seabed. Pratt sits in the canoe, a cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes fixed on the spot where Jones's light is. 'The cucumbers are running out,' he says glumly. While they used to haul in dozens of buckets of sea cucumbers a night, now they struggle to find a handful. Pratt says the divers rarely make more than $40 on a dive - barely enough to cover the costs of fuel or to hire some of the diving equipment. Not long after Jones exits the boat, he flashes his torch to signal that he is ready to swim back in. When he reaches the canoe, he hoists himself up on the side with his forearms. In one hand, he holds the torch, in the other, a small, brown sea cucumber. Pratt takes his turn and disappears into the dark water. He surfaces a while later with a sea cucumber. But the divers are unimpressed. After a couple of hours at sea, they head back to the mooring with a meagre catch of just three specimens. Overhead, the almost-full moon casts a white sheen over the water and dimly illuminates the way home. Emmanuel Pratt walks down to the harbour before a dive [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Emmanuel Pratt walks down to the harbour before a dive [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] While they may not be much to look at, sea cucumbers are prized as a delicacy in China and other parts of Asia. They are served up at banquets or on festive occasions. A single kilogram (2.2lb) of the dried isostichopus maculatus maculatus variety found in Sierra Leone sells for up to $1,237 in marketplaces in Hong Kong, according to Steven Purcell, a professor in marine science at Southern Cross University in Australia. In recent years, demand for sea cucumbers has also been buoyed by Asia's wellness industry. Extracts of the animal are now a common ingredient in health supplements and face creams, which are sold across China, Japan and South Korea. Rich in zinc and collagen, sea cucumbers are purported to boost heart health, cure urinary tract infections and reduce the appearance of wrinkles. Chinese folklore also holds that they are an aphrodisiac, due to their phallic shape and the way they stiffen and expel their entrails when threatened. But Asia's appetite for the animals is pushing global stocks to the brink and quietly damaging the marine ecosystem. Sea cucumbers play a vital role in recycling decomposing matter, turning it into nutrient-rich sediment that helps aerate the seabed. This improves the health of coral reefs and seagrass beds. 'Since the 1980s, sea cucumbers have been plundered in seas across the world, sought after by Asian traders,' says Purcell. 'We are seeing clear signs of severe overfishing from underwater surveys of the animals.' The Banana Islands are no exception. Ever since two Chinese traders showed up in 2010 to source and export sea cucumbers, locals say overfishing has decimated local stocks. If only divers had been trained to fish them sustainably - diving seasonally and collecting just the mature ones - then stocks might still be healthy, says Stephen Akester, an adviser on West African fisheries for the World Bank. If this were the case, then divers like Pratt might have been able to rely on sea cucumbers to provide them with a steady income stream over several decades. As it stands, nowadays, he can barely find enough to make a living. Pratt holds two boiled sea cucumbers [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Pratt holds two boiled sea cucumbers [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Islanders began searching for sea cucumbers 15 years ago. This was when two traders - Chinese men known to islanders as Mr Cham and Mr Lee - turned up on Banana Islands. At that point, sea cucumber stocks across Asia were already badly depleted and businesspeople were searching further afield for the precious marine commodity. Cham and Lee introduced themselves to the then-island chief, Georgiana Campbell, showed her a photograph of a sea cucumber, and asked if she had ever seen one. Campbell, now retired, remembers the moment vividly. 'We used to see them under the rocks all the time,' she says, lounging on her porch with her grandson. 'But we didn't know they were worth anything.' She remembers calling over some fishermen to take a look at the picture. They confirmed that they often caught the animals in their nets and would just toss them back to sea. 'They were polite, because they wanted something,' Campbell says, referring to Cham and Lee. 'They came with all kinds of promises.' A few days later, the men apparently returned with a third associate, an American called "Mr Coleston", to help finalise the deal. In return for letting them harvest the sea cucumbers, the traders promised residents that they would bring solar energy to the island and dig two new water wells. They would also add an extension to the local school and build a community centre, they said. But none of the promises were kept. 'All they ever gave us were 10 bags of cement,' Campbell says - intended, she adds, for the community centre that never got built. A diver fixes his nets [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] A diver fixes his nets [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Today, Banana Islands has no running water nor a connection to the electricity grid. A few households have installed solar panels, but most people cannot afford them and rely on flickering, battery-powered torches after dark. Like 60 percent of those living in rural Sierra Leone, the majority of Banana Islands residents live on less than $2 a day. 'The Chinese men used us, all of us,' Pratt grumbles. Cham and Lee had also promised to train local fishermen like him to dive for sea cucumbers, he says. In return for gathering the animals and delivering them to the mainland, they promised fair wages and regular medical check-ups. But 15 years on, Pratt suffers from persistent chills and body aches he suspects are linked to the work he does. He says he only received one medical check-up. With no savings, he can barely afford to see a doctor on the mainland. The divers also say they were ripped off by the foreign businessmen, who paid them just $0.90 per kg (2.2lb) of raw sea cucumbers. But even with meagre wages, they could still earn a living at the start, as they hauled in such a vast quantity of sea cucumbers. They sometimes collected 60kg (130lb) a night while freediving. This method was also cheaper as it required less gear. Yet as the animals grew scarce, it became much harder to make ends meet. It was only several years later, once Cham and Lee had returned to China, that other traders turned up and offered better prices. Men from China, as well as Lebanon and Sierra Leone, came to buy sea cucumbers. One Chinese trader taught the divers to process their catch, increasing their profits. Jones and Pratt now sell 1kg (2.2lb) of dried, processed sea cucumbers for about $40. They usually take their catch to a handful of traders in Tombo, a nearby fishing village. They sometimes deliver the sea cucumbers to a Chinese casino in Freetown, where they are either exported or served up in the adjoining restaurant. While the traders got rich, the divers did not. 'Cham was the main man who extracted a huge quantity of sea cucumbers from Sierra Leone,' says Woody Koroma, public relations officer for the country's Artisanal Fisherman Union. 'He became very rich.' Houses in Dublin village, Banana Islands [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Houses in Dublin village, Banana Islands [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] The Banana Islands - which reportedly got their name because the Portuguese who landed there in 1462 thought they resembled a bunch of bananas - consist of two small inhabited islets connected by a stone causeway and one uninhabited island. They were once the site of a slave prison, held at different points throughout the 18th century by the British and Portuguese. Traces of their brutal past linger. A collection of moss-covered stones marks the site of a former slave fort, once capable of holding up to 2,000 people. Nearby, two rusted cannons bearing the British crown overlook one of the island's largest coves. Dublin is the largest of the islets. In the main village, a cluster of weathered clapboard houses sits in a clearing, surrounded by banana trees and scraggly bushes. The morning after the dive, an elderly man dozes in a green string hammock, hung between two trees, while chickens peck at the ground around him. A short distance away on the edge of the village is Jones's house - a tin-roofed bungalow - where the divers are at work, boiling and salting their catch from the night before. They move methodically through their routine: Pratt stands by an open stove, a tub of salt in one hand, while a saucepan of water boils beside him; Jones fans the flames with pieces of cardboard. In a plastic bucket, nearby, three sea cucumbers await processing. After boiling and salting them, the divers leave the sea cucumbers to dry in the sun. Processing the catch not only preserves it and makes it easier to export, but also drives up Pratt and Jones's profit margins - they can now deliver the final product to the traders. 'Ten years ago, we didn't know the real price of the sea cucumber,' Pratt says, 'We never knew their value.' Jones boils sea cucumbers [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Jones boils sea cucumbers [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Banana Islands divers are not the only ones feeling the effects of the sea cucumber decline - the nearby reef lies lifeless and grey. 'The sea cucumber is the dustman of the sea,' says Akester. 'They eat all the algae on the reef. When a coral reef runs out of sea cucumber, it dies. That's what's happened off Banana Islands.' Sadly, the damage is not limited to local reefs. Across Sierra Leone's waters, Akester says, the marine environment is under increasing pressure. Industrial trawlers from South Korea, China, and, more recently, Turkiye and Egypt, have fished along the continental shelf where fish spawn. Certain species like the yellow croaker, once plentiful, are starting to disappear. Turkish trawlers are targeting small pelagic fish, including mackerel and sardines, which the local fisheries depend on. 'There are fewer fish than before,' Suleiman Seaport, a 40-year-old fisherman, confirms. 'We don't eat other meat - fish is what our families survive on.' Up to 80 percent of Sierra Leoneans do not have enough food, according to the UNWFP. For the majority of the population, fish is the most affordable, and often the only, source of protein. Banana Islands [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Banana Islands [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] When Pratt isn't diving for sea cucumbers, he relies on spearfishing. But, these days, even that catch is small, partly as a result of overfishing trawlers. His house in Dublin village was built eight years ago, with cash from his early sea cucumber earnings. Back then, stocks were still abundant. Now, the brick bungalow is starting to crumble. The roof, which has been patched up with blue tarpaulins, is leaking badly, and the leather sofas have been ruined by rainwater. The walls, once covered in a bright lick of blue paint, are now faded and smudged. As the rainy season approaches, Pratt worries that the roof will not hold. 'I want to repair my place, but I don't have the money,' he says, exhaling cigarette smoke as he perches on the edge of a battered sofa. Later on, he adds: 'They promised us many things, but they are liars,' referring to the foreign businessmen who broke their word to the community. For generations, Sierra Leone has been a site foreigners came to for resources - from diamonds, purchased by big companies which helped fund rebel groups during the civil war, to precious rosewood felled by mainly Chinese traders, and iron ore mined by UK companies. Further back, the country was a huge hub for British and Portuguese slave traders. For locals, the short-lived sea cucumber boom on Banana Islands echoes a wider trend in Sierra Leone's history: As trawlers and opportunistic traders plunder the seas, the country's natural wealth once again goes to enrich outsiders. Meanwhile, locals are left with less to eat and fewer ways to earn a living. Meanwhile, divers are trying to build on new dreams. 'I am becoming a musician,' Jones says, before playing a sample of his latest recording on his phone. His voice is layered over a catchy, Afrobeats-style rhythm. 'I have talent, I want to do that instead.' Jones in the water diving for sea cucumbers [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera] Jones in the water diving for sea cucumbers [Olivia Acland/Al Jazeera]
SBS Australia
5 days ago
- Business
- SBS Australia
Australia's ancient export brings new jobs to WA
Shark Bay or Gathaagudu is on Australia's most westerly point. A world heritage area where the bronzed earth meets turquoise waters abundant with marine life. Here you'll find turtles, dugongs, whale, dolphins and scattered across the sea floor a coveted delicacy containing centuries of seafaring history. The sea cucumber is Australia's first ever export. From the early 1700s, Makassan fisherman, from the island of Sulawesi - now Indonesia - sailed the trade winds south to Arnhem Land to trade with Aboriginal people. "From what the records show, they used to swap sea cucumbers for iron for their spears. So I thought it was incredible that there was a trade before colonisation and you can actually record it. So why not try and recreate it?" That's Malgana Traditional Owner Michael Wear. He heads an Indigenous-owned business which is reviving the ancient industry. Tidal Moon draws on traditional knowledge to harvest sea cucumbers sustainably. Hand-picked, one by one, the marine animal will soon be dried and processed at a brand-new export facility in the West Australian town of Denham. And then they're sent to a Singaporean partner for export across South East Asia. Tidal Moon also has its sights set on Western markets, with emerging research highlighting the potential health benefits of the marine animals. The hope is that as the business scales up, so too will employment opportunities in the region. "The lack of indigenous people in the commercial fishing industry is so, so unfortunate. If you can create a business that's sustainable, that's culturally directed, you can create jobs and a middle class within small coastal towns." Since 2017, the company has trained around a dozen Indigenous divers, including 28 year old Malgana and Amangu man Alex Dodd - the company's lead diver "Tidal Moon, what it's actually doing is making that middle class ground so people can move back home and have jobs and then buy a house, settle down with their family and kids up here and move back home. A lot of the time you get young fellas that grow up here and then they're moving away going to the mines or going to Perth or something like that because it's not sustainable for them to work here." Conservation is also at the heart of the business Gathaagudu is home to the planet's largest reserve of seagrass both a food source for marine life and a carbon storage powerhouse But more than a quarter was razed in a marine heatwave in 2011, and it's still recovering while also grappling with a new heatwave. In February, the waters were four degrees warmer than usual. Tidal Moon is leading one of the world's largest seagrass restoration projects. While scouring the seafloor for sea cucumbers, the divers also replant seagrass reserves. "One of the key things that we're trying to do is keep the carbon captured in the sea floor. So without seagrass restoration, you have these carbon bombs that go off and there's about 40 million tons of CO2 that are at risk in Shark Bay." The team have also catalogued over 4000 hours of footage – a 'living library' of marine observations noticing a symbiotic relationship between the seagrass and sea cucumbers. Jennifer Verduin, a marine scientist at Perth's Murdoch University, agrees that the relationship might be 'mutually beneficial,' saying sea cucumbers are 'the worms of the ocean.' "The function of sea cucumbers overturning the soil and redistributing nutrients. It's very good to get those nutrients in within the sediment. So it's good for the seagrasses and they grow better. But seagrasses, in turn, also then protect the sea cucumbers." She says Tidal Moon's divers, have a 'careful' and 'circular' way of approaching marine conservation. "We have lost the art of observation as western scientists, very often. And that's why I think Tidal Moon is really important to getting that back up to a better understanding of a circular ecosystem, if you like."
Forbes
21-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
‘Headless Chicken Monster' Captivates Ocean Scientists With Graceful Dance
The headless chicken monster is a type of sea cucumber. Many animals have acquired silly nicknames from amused humans. Raccoons are trash pandas. Snakes are danger noodles. Ocean dwellers aren't immune to this trend. Stingrays are sea flap flaps. But few nicknames reach the height of the headless chicken monster. One of these special animals was recently captured on camera by ocean explorers. The crew of the Exploration Vessel Nautilus spotted a headless chicken monster while surveying the Vogt Seamount east of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean. Seamounts are underwater mountains. The vessel deploys remotely operated vehicles to study the deep sea. One of the ship's ROVs snapped the mesmerizing footage of the chicken monster. The monster has no relation to actual poultry. It's a type of sea cucumber in the Enypniastes genus. Sea cucumbers are soft-bodied invertebrate creatures that typically scavenge for their snacks. Many of them have long, bumpy bodies that resemble the cucumbers we eat in salads. Headless chicken monsters 'are unique in that they've evolved webbed swimming fin-like structures at the front and back of their bodies,' the Nautilus team wrote. 'These semi-transparent deep-sea invertebrates are also known to shed parts of their skin to generate a glowing cloud.' The scientists providing live commentary brought some context to the sighting. The sea cucumbers are also known as Spanish dancers because they have 'nice skirts.' This feature is evident as the animal gracefully flaps through the water. The translucent animal has its guts on display. The dark hole at the top is the sea cucumber's mouth. That's where the 'headless' part of its nickname comes from. The rounded and tapered body resembles a plucked chicken. This transparent sea creature is a cucumber relative. The chicken monster isn't the only unusual sea creature in the E/V Nautilus video. 'While exploring the depths, the team also spotted a more transparent swimming cucumber relative from the Elpidiidae family with nearly translucent body cavity with orange digestive track shining from within,' the Nautilus organization said. If you thought the chicken monster was odd, wait until you hear what this transparent swimming cucumber can do. This animal is known for evading predators by shedding weight and shooting upward. It drops the weight quickly by 'doing a big poo.' The researchers also described this process as 'ballast release.' The Nautilus is exploring the Mariana Islands on an expedition funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It's an area littered with submarine volcanoes. Public outreach is a key part of the Nautilus mission. The ship sends out live video feeds of its science adventures. The translucent headless chicken monster is a highlight from one of these feeds. Previous expeditions have turned up unusual sights like a 'yellow brick road' on the ocean floor and an actual nautilus—a marine mollusk known for its artfully curved shell. The headless chicken monster is worthy of note, not just for its funny nickname, but for its jewel-like beauty and grace as a swimmer. Sea cucumbers are fascinating critters. But what do you call a group of them? According to the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom, 'Due to their fruit-like appearance, a group of sea cucumbers is known as a pickle.'
