Putting into practice an ecosystem approach to managing sea cucumber fisheries

Boom-and-bust cycles are commonplace in the exploitation history of sea cucumber fisheries but pandemic overfishing to critical levels now threatens the persistence of breeding stocks for future generations of coastal fishers. Resource managers must embrace an ecosystem approach to fisheries, in which biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services and the concerns of stakeholders are taken into account alongside of the productivity of stocks and the economic gains from fishing. This document is an abridged version of FAO Fisheries and Aquaculture Technical Paper No. 520 Managing Sea Cucumber Fisheries with an Ecosystem Approach. This booklet provides a “roadmap” for developing and implementing better management of sea cucumber fisheries. A set of management regulations and actions by the resource manager are needed in all fisheries and will depend on the way in which animals are fished, the status of stocks, and the technical and human resource capacity of management institutions. Also summarised here are the merits and limitations of potential management regulations and actions by the resource manager, and steps required for their implementation.