TUE eter arts Ponce rng facet eae ce Se eee oem meree eri Caer ere eer et Paired cero porieeieseeseciten) ee) eran e) AW ee ee) peer oa re Coe aes een Peeters ner ar cari ery! Snes ety Peery ny Ieiteerecemairrec Poirier nese r corer petty eee) Ne et Tees Pere eee oe eC D Secretariat ofthe Paci Community su 25-00 oe Issue34- May 2014 BECHE-DE-MER information bulletin Editorial ‘The 31% issue of the Beche-de-mer Information Bulletin includes, as always, a considerable amount of information on the biology, ecology and Djo-management of sea cucumbers. Inthe first artic Chantal Conand anc co-authors describe the process used and the rents obtained in an assessment of sea cucuniber species for the Intemational Union forCon servation of Nature (IUCN) Rest ist 6 threatened spedes, out of 377 known aspicachirotidsex amined, are presented. ‘The second article comes from Fij. Watisoni Lalavanua and colleagues undertook asea cucumber assessment survey in Batiki District in October 2012, The results indicate that the sea cucumber fishery there is under stress from overexploitation ane requires effectivemanagement, Pablo Navarre and co-authors provide some information on beche-de- ‘mer activities at Pulau Misa, a small island in Incanesia’s Flores Sea. The people ftom Pulau Misa carry out a semi-traditional sea axcumiber fishery. Katrin LampeRameoo and colleagues assessed holothurian diversity, abundana: and distitution in the shallow lagoons of Mauritius. The authors surveyed many transects at various sites and recorcied more than 7,000 holathurians three-quarters of which areof commercial importance Maevel Romero and Jérome Cabansag present some data about the diversity and sexual maturity of sea cucumbers in the mangroves of Babaingon in Leyte Province, Philippines. They identified five species, some of them characterised through gonad measurements Plotieau and qo-authers characterised the mineral and organic feakires of the sediment in sea pens where Holothuria seaéra individuals were farmed. They analysed the tolal organic carbon fraction, the abundance of five minerals and several organic parameters of the sediment in four villages in Madagascar. Belbachir and colleagues assessed the selective feeding behaviour of four aspidochirotid holothurians: Holotiuria sanctori, H. forskali, H. poi and H. tnbulosa, The results show that some species are more selective than others, Mercedes Gonzélez-Wangilemert and colleagues assessed the ocasrrenae ‘of Carapus acus in six sea cucumber spedes from the Me diterranean Sea and northeaslem Allante Ocean. They provide some new insigh's into the relationship between the fish and their holothurian hosts,5B SPC Bache-de ertefonnaer Bullet #34 May 2014 From:P.AD. Ajith Kumara’ Recent training workshop on Artificial Breeding and Larval Rearing of Holothuria scabra in Sti Lanka Sri Lanka’s beche-demer industry has a long history, and includes around 21 commercial sea cucumber species, most of them reported to be overexploited (Dissanayake and Stefansson 2010 ). As in many other countries of the world, Sri Lana started a sea cucumber seed production programme. Under this programme, which began in Late 2011, sandfish (Holothuria scabra) was successfully bred by scientists of the ‘National Aquatic Resources Researchand Development Agency (NARA), which is the research partof St Lanka’s Ministry of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Development. ‘To disseminate this technology to interested local parties, NARA conducted a two-day red dential training, workshop on artificial breeding and larval rearing of sandfish at NARA Regional Research Center in Kalpitiya on 14 and 15 December 2013. Private sector participants, including hatchery owners, hatchery ‘managers and officers from govemment agencies as well asnen-governmental onganisations, were trained through this workshop. This was the irst raining workshop carvied out in Sri Lanka on the breeding and larval rearing of any sea cucumber species, and NARA wishes to conduct few more training sessions in 2014, Thistraining workshop was conducted by Mr P.A.D. Ajith Kumara, Senior Scientist of Inland Aquatic Resources and Aquaculture Divisign of NARA and ALM Rifhy, Offic Research Center, Kalpitiya. Participants with resource persons (upper left photo): Theselection of b-oodstock far artificial breeding {upperright photo); Participants being instructed during abreeding session (ower left photo); Participants being instructed on broodstock feed (lower right phota), "National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA), Crow Island, Colombo 15, $4 Lanka: Ema: padapthkamaralyahoocom