Muscat – H E Dr Saud Hamoud al Habsi, Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, issued a ministerial decision on Thursday banning fishing, possession and trade of sea cucumbers for three years.

According to the decision, any type of activity involving sea cucumbers – buying, selling, transporting, storing and exporting – is prohibited during the embargo period.

The ministry has continued to ban fishing of sea cucumbers for the last several years. Last year, it had extended the ban for a year on March 26. A decision issued in early 2019 banned fishing sea cucumbers for two years (2019-20), which was an extension of a similar decision in 2018. 

According to the ministry, the ban has been issued to check dwindling numbers. The primary species harvested in Oman is the sandfish (Holothuria scabra called ‘feik albahar’ in Arabic, meaning sea jaw).

According to a study by Khalfan al Rashdi and Dr Michel Claereboudt of Sultan Qaboos University, over 21 Holothurian species have been recently recorded in the shallow waters of Oman. Of these, only Holothuria scabra is exploited commercially, costing RO1.5 a piece. These are found in the western side of Masirah Island and Mahout Bay, which are characterised by large, shallow beds of sea grass with fine sand in sheltered lagoons.

The first official record of the exploitation of Holothuria scabra in Oman was reported over a decade ago.

‘Unfortunately, this exploited stock followed the same rapid decline as most exploited populations of sea cucumber elsewhere. Overfishing evidences include a rapid decrease in population density which has been critically reduced to less than one individual per hectare as reported not only in Oman, but in many parts of the world,’ the researchers reported.