Algeria’s sea cucumber fishery: Challenges for a new fishery

Abstract

Traditionally in Algeria, sea cucumbers were only exploited on a very small scale, mainly as bait for fishing. There are no official data on the exploitation status of sea cucumber stocks along the Algerian coast. However, for some years, there has been clandestine networks that fish for and sell sea cucumbers, specifically for the benefit of the Chinese communities established in Algeria, and perhaps for export. Information collected from fishers and snorkelers indicate that exploitation started in 2013 on the western and central coast, before extending to the entire Algerian coast. The harvesting of sea cucumbers is still an artisanal activity but is growing rapidly and is capable of extracting significant amounts of these benthic animals, estimated at a few tens of kilograms wet weight per day and per person. Hence, the urgency of setting up a national management strategy for the nascent fishery, which, if we rely to the exploitation scheme already observed in other regions of the world, will soon face important challenges in terms of resource preservation and environmental impact.