Socio-economic impact of sea cucumber conservation in Palk Bay and Gulf of Mannar Region of Tamil Nadu

Sea cucumber is one of the important marine resources and its fishery is a source of income to coastal communities. It contributes to poverty alleviation for more than three million fishers globally. The indiscriminate exploitation for this lucrative trade would have resulted in overexploitation leading to endangering of the species in the wild. The blanket ban on collection and trade on sea cucumber in India was imposed during 2002 by listing this organism in Schedule I category of the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972. The present study aimed to analyze and understand the impacts of listing on the conservation of sea cucumber resources in the wild and on the livelihood of the fishers. The enforcement of ban has affected the livelihood of thousands of fishermen families involved in sea cucumber fishing. There was a loss in their regular income as they were not able to do other fishing activities due to lack of capacity for investment. The fishers opined that they want the ban to be lifted at least for a few commercially important species. They are agreeable to follow regulatory measures like size restriction on fishing of undersized sea cucumbers, exclusion of breeding stock from fishing, restraining from use of destructive gears, exclusive fishing ban period for stock replenishment, sea ranching and stock enhancement programmes for conservation of the resource through participatory co-management principles.