Abstract
The beche-de-mer fishery began in Egypt in 1998 in the southern part of the country. Initially this was at a low level and primarily performed by trawling boats. By 2000 the fishery had expanded dramatically, leading to fears of over-exploitation. As a consequence, the Red Sea Governorate initiated a ban on sea cucumber fishing in 2001 so that a baseline survey and stock assessment could be performed. This survey began in 2001 and was undertaken jointly by the Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) and Universities of Hull and Suez Canal through a UK Government sponsored Darwin Initiative project. The initial ban on fishing resulted in the development of a large illegal fishery along the coast of Egypt. In addition, pressure from the Government Fisheries Agency to reopen the fishery lead to the Red Sea Governorate lifting its ban in 2002. However, preliminary data collected by the Darwin project indicates that populations of commercial sea cucumber have undergone a rapid decline and this has now led all government agencies and departments to realise that the resource needs immediate protection. Consequently, a new ban was decreed in March 2003 to cover the whole coastline. The Government will make a new decision on the fishery in 2004 based on the results from the project stock assessment. This paper will review what is known of the current status of the fishery together with the preliminary data collected as part of the stock assessment.