For almost a century, the harvesting and processing
of sea cucumbers into trepang has been a source of
income for many Philippine families. Exports,
however, increased tremendously in recent years,
from 250 t in 1977, and 1189 t in 1984 (1977–1984
statistics from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic
Resources, Philippines) to 2123 t in 1996 (FAO,
1996). The Philippines is now the second major
producer and exporter of dried sea cucumber in
the world (Conand & Byrne, 1993; Conand, in
press). Despite its importance in the world market,
no comprehensive study about the bêche-de-mer
exploitation in the Philippines has been conducted.
The increasing depletion of sea cucumber stocks is
obvious and has only been sporadically documented
(Trinidad-Roa, 1987; Schoppe et al., 1998;
Schoppe, in press). In the mean time, sea cucumber
sizes have become smaller and collections must be
conducted in deeper waters.