BBC features Pinay sea cucumber growers

Women growing sea cucumbers off Bolinao, Pangasinan, in collaboration with the University of the Philippines’ Marine Science Institute (UPMSI) and guarding the high-value marine invertebrates against poachers, have been highlighted in a BBC feature story.

The article titled “We’ve raised thousands: The pickle-shaped ‘janitors’ cleaning Filipino reefs”, written by Janine Peralta and published on 22 July, mentioned Aweng Caasi, a 61-year-old widow from a fishing village of Barangay Victory in Bolinao, as among the caretakers of the 20-year-old sea ranch hosting pickle-like marine creatures of varying sizes.

“When I was a child, I used to see loads of them, but now that I’m older, they’ve become so little. We want to restore them so they can multiply,” BBC quoted Caasi as saying.

Helping Caasi guard the sea cucumbers are Gemma Candelario and Marivic Carolino, mangrove raisers from a neighboring village, according to the article.

The Philippines was the top producer of wild sea cucumbers between 1985 and 1993, exporting some 3,000 to 4,000 tons yearly until overexploitation and overfishing led to a sharp decline in stocks, according to the article. Annette Meñez, a marine invertebrate ecologist at UPMSI, reached out to the Bolinao fishing communities in the early 2000s to collaborate on restoring the town’s sea cucumber population.

UPMSI spawned the sea cucumbers in its hatchery tanks in Bolinao, growing them into 4-millimeter larva, about the size of a rice grain, and delivering these to the fisherfolk to nurture in the sea by sticking them to floating hapas or nets, where they can munch on periphyton — algae and other bacteria, Peralta wrote.

When the sea cucumber weighs 3 grams or the size of a thumb in about 40 to 60 days, they are transferred to a one-hectare ocean nursery to live among fellow sea cucumbers for another three to six months. Afterwards, the farmers release them to the five-hectare ranch to meet and breed with other animals until they grow to the suitable selling weight of 320g, which can take over a year. The process is done twice a year, but the length of each cycle varies depending on how quickly the sea cucumbers develop.

As of the latest record in 2024, the ranch has a density of 4,415 sea cucumbers or 883 individuals per hectare, according to UPMSI.

The three women admit that earnings from the small sea cucumber stock are not enough but their work is worthwhile as seeing them grow and multiply makes them happy.