Fisheries Ministry to reduce permits on harvesting sea cucumber

Minister of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development Mahinda Amaraweera said a decision has been made to reduce the number of permits issued for sea cumber harvesting by twenty five percentage annually.

He expressed his views in a discussion held recently at the district secretariat Jaffna on the development of the fisheries industry in the Northern Province. The discussion was held with the participation of the Secretary to the Ministry, Governor Northern Province Reginald Cooray, Hon. Vijaykala Maheshwaran and Angajan Ramanathan.

The reasons which led to such a decision was the danger of seas cumbers getting extinct from Sri Lankan seas due to the over exploitation by Sri Lankan fishers. Furthermore the Indian fishers illegally fish sea cumbers and chank on a massive scale using bottom trawling.

Hence the Ministry has decided to temporarily suspend sea cumber fishing for four years in Sri Lanka. India had once prohibited fishing sea cumber in their seas but the ban was revoked due the re generation of this species which has a high economic value.  

Currently price of one kilo gram sea cucumber in the foreign market amounts around to Rs. 25,000. Even though the Sea Cucumbers are not consumed domestically the particular species which is edible is harvested from the sea area from Chilaw to Mannar.

A high demand for Sri Lankan Sea Cucumbers prevails in Japan and China. Nearly 2000 divers in Sri Lanka are currently engaged in this livelihood while 3 organizations are involved in Sea Cumber related exports.