By Cam McGrath Special to the Middle East Times
Asian demand for khiyar al bahr (
sea cucumbers) is providing opportunities for unemployed Egyptian fishermen, but poses a serious threat to their safety and the Red Sea marine ecosystem.
Sea cucumbers belong to the same animal family as sea urchins and starfish. Living on the sea floor, these "moving intestines" swallow mud and sand to absorb nutrition from its organic detritus.
In essence, sea cucumbers do for the oceans what earthworms do for land, turning over nearly 90 percent of the sea floor's biomass.
Egyptians have never considered eating the slimy sea critters, which grow to 50 centimeters and look like an overstuffed sausage, but many Asians consider them a delicacy. Having exhausted their own stocks, the Asian commercial industry began in the mid-1980s to set its sights on overseas fisheries, targeting coastal waters in Micronesia, Mexico and South America.
Egypt's Red Sea coast is the latest target. Local fishermen have reported seeing hundreds of divers coming to the waters around Hurghada to collect sea cucumbers. Many of the divers are poor fishermen from the Delta, who were laid off when rising pollution levels killed their fisheries. They have been lured by the prospect of receiving EŁ1 for every
sea cucumber they collect – easy pickings, as the invertebrates move less than a meter a minute.
In the early 1990s, every street corner in Hurghada had kids selling seashells. Vendors said they found the shells lying on the beaches, but it was soon discovered that divers were collecting live mollusks in the sea to sell to tourists. Bylaws were passed to put an end to the commercial sale of shells, which threatened to degrade the area's coral reefs.
"The obvious selling of shells in the street has died down a lot," said Nigel Jarvis, owner of Easy Divers diving center. "But this year we've seen fishermen, mostly from elsewhere, coming to Hurghada to collect sea cucumbers. They are collecting hundreds per day."
The sea cucumbers are frozen then shipped to Asian markets for processing, which is labor-intensive. The skin is poisonous, but the muscle mass is high in protein and purported to have aphrodisiac properties. At least one local fisherman is said to have died trying to establish the veracity of the claim.
Egypt has never conducted a study on the ecological effects of sea cucumber over-fishing, but marine biologists compare their harvest to removing the oil filter from a car. Without them, pollution levels rise and bottom-feeding species die.
"Sea cucumbers eat the rubbish on the bottom of the sea and remove its toxicity," said Jarvis. "Nobody can really say whether the sea cucumber-taking is right or wrong, but if you take out one slice of the bio cycle, something falls over."
Environment officials say without proper studies to demonstrate the damage that unregulated sea cucumber harvesting causes, it will be difficult to convince the General Authority for Fish Resources Development to revoke fishing licenses.
"This is a big problem," said one Egyptian Environment Affairs Agency official. "We don't have any official figures, but we know that they are being over fished."
A more serious problem is safety.
"Most of these divers have no experience whatsoever," said Karim Helal, chairman of the Red Sea Association for Diving and Watersports. "Many have been injured or killed because of their lack of experience."
Some 20 divers are rumored to have drowned or died from nitrogen narcosis, caused when divers ascend too fast. Helal says he can vouch for at least two of the deaths, as he was involved in the recovery of the bodies.
