Poachers threaten Galapagos sea cucumbers

August 24, 1998
Webposted at 10:15 AM EDT

By Environmental News Network staff

Sea cucumbers sit on the ocean floor where they process and filter waste.

(ENN) -- Sea cucumbers are unassuming, homely creatures that sit like debris on the ocean floor. But in recent years, these little-known animals have become the focus of a lucrative international trade. In the Galapagos Islands, arguably the most important wildlife reserve in the world, the sea cucumber is threatened with extinction.

As more and more North Americans look to alternative medicine, the demand for animal products with curative properties has steadily increased. But the animal-based medicine craze has not come without a cost. The consumer demand for such products has supported an illegal and unregulated fishing industry that has wreaked havoc on the world's marine ecosystems. In some cases, poaching has reduced populations of certain Latin American species to the point of near extinction.

In Vancouver's colorful China town, consumers flock in search of their favorite Asian products. Wong's apothecary, on a central market street, is a favorite of specialty consumers who are drawn by the impressive display of imported delicacies arranged outside the shop's entrance.

The dried animal products are shipped from Hong Kong, which is said to be the international hub for the endangered and rare species trade. But because the poached animals change so many hands before they arrive in places like Vancouver's Chinatown, it is very difficult for shop-owners to know whether their merchandise is part of an illegally fished shipment.

As in most lucrative trade operations, when profits are being made all around, few questions are asked about the source of the animal products that are sold. Because shop owners rarely know the origin of the products they feature, consumers remain ignorant of the sometimes sinister connection between their appetite for herbal remedies and the toll such consumerism takes on natural environments.

The Ecuadorian marine crisis

The small archipelago 1,000 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador known as the Galapagos Islands is arguably the most important wildlife reserve in the world. Despite this claim, the area has been one of the hardest hit by poaching and overfishing.

"Here, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat nearer to the great fact -- the mysteries of mysteries -- the fist appearance of new beings on earth, " wrote Darwin in 1845 on his first voyage to the Galapagos. Darwin's fascination with the islands didn't save them from exploitation.

Only fifty years after Darwin's landmark study, the islands were used as a base for whaling and sea lion hunting expeditions. Today, the assault on Galapagos' natural resources continues. Last year, the profits to be made by illegal poaching culminated in the death of a park warden.

While on a routine patrol of the Galapagos marine reserve, Park Warden Julio Lopez noticed a stream of smoke coming from a nearby island. As he approached the island, Lopez found a small encampment of Ecuadorian fishermen watching over their sun-drying crop. Camping on the Galapagos is strictly illegal due to the extreme fragility of the islands' unique wildlife. When Lopez confronted the group, one of the men pulled out a gun and shot him in the stomach.

The incident had Ecuadorian park officials reeling in shock. What could the fisherman have been guarding that was so valuable to warrant firing at a park warden?

Upon further investigation, they found that the lucrative crop was Ischitopus fuscus, a rare variety of sea cucumber found in Galapagos waters. Sea cucumbers sit on the ocean floor where they process and filter waste -- organic debris that settles on the sea floor is consumed by the cucumber.

"If you see areas where the water is in bad condition, it's because the sea cucumbers have been stolen," said Diego Bonilla, chief officer of Galapagos National Park. The animals are sometimes compared to earthworms on land because they feed on detritus and turn over the sea floor. The small bumpy-skinned cucumbers can make up 90 percent of the biomass in marine systems. Today, sea cucumbers are threatened with extinction as a direct result of overharvesting.

Interest in Galapagos sea cucumbers began in 1988. In the early years of the trade, park officials knew very little about the biology of the sea cucumber or the effects that harvesting would have on the marine ecosystem of the islands. By 1992 though, the Ecuadorian government recognized the toll that the fast depredation of the sea cucumber was having on underwater natural resources and imposed a complete ban.

Despite the ban, sea cucumber harvesting has continued at an alarming rate. According to Daniel Ibarra, a naturalist guide for the Galapagos reserve, Asian buyers began contracting with Ecuadorian fishermen for a large quota of sea cucumbers several years ago. The contractors promised a lucrative per cucumber price of about two dollars.

Local fishermen from the islands and from Ecuador have invested in equipment, aided by loans from industrial fisheries. From 1993-1994, the National Fishing Institute was in charge of regulation of the Marine Reserve. But the minister of the institute was also the owner of a large commercial fishing operation. Conservationists claim that decisions about the use of the marine reserve's resources were consistently made in favor of commercial fishing interests during this period.

The sea cucumber "gold rush" has brought a host of environmental and social ills to the islands. With strong demand for the product continuing, fisherman from the Ecuadorian mainland continue to migrate to the islands hoping to make a quick profit in the illegal activity. Human settlement in the Galapagos park is restricted to small communities on the islands of Santa Cruz, San Cristobol, and Isabela. The influx of settlers to these communities has caused a serious strain on their already insufficient public infrastructure.

In 1996, after park officials arrested eight sea cucumber poachers on the island of Isabela, protests erupted over the park's interference in the lucrative trade. Fisherman marched into the National Park Office and seized control. The confrontation exposed the sharp divide that exists between conservationist and development groups and between local residents and the national government.

The poachers tend to concentrate their efforts on the outermost islands of the Galapagos archipelago. These remote waters are the hardest to patrol because of their distance from the settlements on Santa Cruz, San Cristobol and Isabela where the park office is based. Unfortunately, the outer islands are also the most fragile. On-shore cucumber processing camps devastate the island's animal habitats. To fuel campfires, the fishermen cut down tall mangroves which are the home of the islands' rarest finch, the tool-using Mangrove Finch. "We have yet to learn what the environmental consequences of the overharvesting will be," said Diego Bonilla, chief of Galapagos National Park.

The sea cucumber crisis in the Galapagos opened the eyes of conservationists and park officials to the need for more comprehensive laws to protect the marine reserve's resources. A group composed of representatives from the park service, the Charles Darwin Station (a non-governmental organization on the islands) and the World Wildlife Fund brought the government and the fishing sector to the bargaining table.

In March of this year, the Ecuadorian congress approved a series of sweeping measures that will expand the area of the reserve and guarantee its protection. The law officially established the National Park as the primary authority in charge of the marine reserve's administration and expanded its boundaries to include a 40 mile area from the shoreline. It also established a committee made up of members from the tourist, fishing and conservation sectors that will make decisions about the reserve's future.

Still, the park faces some serious challenges. Park officials have just one boat to patrol the entire reserve, making it relatively easy for poachers to elude detection. Park officials estimate that between 60,000 and 1 million sea cucumbers are exported each month through the mainland to outside markets. More importantly, with the demand for sea cucumbers still healthy and the price paid for the catch still high, poaching will most likely continue to plague the delicate balance of the marine ecosystems of the islands. It will ultimately be consumers who decide the fate of the Galapagos' sea cucumber.

About the author: Korey Capozza is a freelance journalist based in Portland, Ore., and La Paz, Bolivia, who writes about Latin American social, political and environmental issues. She recently spent eight months in South America, and is currently working on a story in northern British Columbia. For more information, contact Ms. Capozza, email: korinita@yahoo.com.

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