STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF HUMAN CAPITAL

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America places international development in line with defense and diplomacy as the third pillar of U.S. national security. In recognition of this significant responsibility and in cooperation with the Millennium Development Initiatives issued by the United Nations, Pacific Aquaculture Cooperatives Inc has devised the following strategic plan for implementation.

The Challenge

Illegal fishing of sea cucumbers in the South Pacific region has had a debilitating effect on the industry, environment, and economy, according to industry reports and State legislature findings. Efforts have been taken by State legislature of the countries in the South Pacific Region to regulate South Pacific holothurian fisheries by limiting entries to fisheries, reduce fishing effort on overfished areas, regulate, suspend, and in some cases where necessary, prohibit the fishing and harvesting of species. Further regulations have been devised to place restrictions on export activities. While these methods have been applied, as viable management regimes, they have proved unsuccessful to the industry as a whole.

In other areas of the Pacific, most notably the Galapagos Islands, environmental concerns have become a major issue to the international community. The impact of the sea cucumber fishery in the Galapagos Islands has raised special concern in Ecuador and internationally. Not only does the fishery pose a direct threat to local sea cucumber populations as a resource, but also indirectly to the fauna and flora of the islands, recognized worldwide as of immense biological importance. A large proportion of the land area (nearly 770,000 ha of a total of nearly 800,000 ha, comprising 13 major islands) is a national park and 8,000,000 ha of near and offshore waters around the islands were established as the Galapagos Marine Resources Reserve in 1986. This area was upgraded to a Biological Reserve of Marine Resources in December 1996 (Anon., 1997a). Sea cucumber fishers have contravened regulations in force for the reserve, felling trees and otherwise affecting local habitats through their processing activities, and increasing the opportunities for non-native species, such as rats, ants and weeds, to invade the islands (MacFarland and Cifuentes, 1996; Merlen, 1995).

The per capita earnings have diminished significantly as native islanders have come to rely heavily on the aquaculture industry for the ongoing sustainability of their livelihood. The price of copra (dried coconut meat, which for centuries was their only export), which has been used in the food and cosmetic industries, has dramatically declined, due to the technological advancement in synthetic food and cosmetic ingredients, that the supplemental income it once supplied to support families are no longer enough money to survive on and have reduced them to poverty. Many adults are forced to leave their home islands and families in order to find employment to support them.

Compounded with the fact that there are many countries that have no regulations in place or if they do, a lack of funds and manpower for monitoring and enforcement is seen as a common problem. Information on holothurian biology and ecology is lacking, as are basic stock assessments. Enforcement of regulations and monitoring is a problem particularly in areas, which are geographically isolated, and in countries lacking financial and human resources; and there is a lack of education and awareness programs.

These problems include a lack of information on the population dynamics of exploited species (including taxonomic difficulties), a lack of reliable fishery and trade statistics, illegal activities, a lack of effective regulations, and low state level prioritization of this resource with associated knock-on effects on monitoring and enforcement. This final problem is one to take particular note of, as many countries do not view holothurians as a high priority resource, despite their ecological role and economic importance to small communities. One must also take into consideration any possible lack of interest from fishers and traders, with considerable evidence of widespread "boom and bust" fishing activities in reaction to current high market demands. This, however, can also be linked to a lack of educational awareness programs. It is difficult to identify general approaches to the problems facing holothurian fisheries, as each fishery is unique and very dependent upon political factors within specific states.

Over the last two decades, the global exploitation of sea cucumbers has reached such high levels and raised such concern that a United States of America call, with multi-party support, has been made to consider the listing of the families Holothuridae and Stichopodidae in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES ) (Bruckner et al., 2003). Following the CITES  Conference of Parties (COP 12) in November 2002 in Chile, a draft decision was agreed which would look towards bringing experts together in workshops to discuss conservation and biological and trade information. The Animals Committee of CITES would examine the outcomes of these as well as additional material and would develop recommendations and a discussion paper to provide guidance on actions required to secure conservation status (Bruckner, 2003). However one views the input of CITES , be it positively or negatively, be it through the eyes of a conservationist, producer, importer, exporter, consumer, processor or fisher, as a reality and reflects some international concerns at the current status of sea cucumber populations and approaches to their management and trade.

Footnotes

1. (Reference: Traffic International Bulletin, Vol 17, No.3. January 1999)

2. (Reference: FAO Corporate Document Repository. Title: Advances In Sea Cucumber Aquaculture and Management)