Sea cucumbers: The Ionian “treasure” sold for $ 2,800 a kilo

For some it causes chills, while for others it does huge value for local cuisine as wellbut also for alternative medicine. The reason for the precious treasure that can be found at Ionian and on the Italian coastthe so-called “Sea cucumbers”which sold for astronomical amounts especially in Asian markets.

In 2020, China and Hong Kong were by far the largest buyers of whole thyroid – under their official name – importing at least 70% of the global supply, worth about $ 270 million. China’s cult of “sea cucumbers” has created at least one troubled supply chain from Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the Mediterranean.

But let’s start from the beginning: the most important thing is that a kilo of allothuroids can catch up to $ 3,000 in the Chinese market. For this reason and in the last decade, “Sea cucumbers” have become the target of criminals from Italy, who with the help of Turkish and Greek smugglers, have set up entire companies and “comb” the coast of southern Italy.

Hence Italy became the first country in Europe to completely ban fishing and sale of allothuroids from 2018, while environmental groups oversee compliance with the law in the wider area. However, the ban is temporary and is due to expire this December.

And in any case, during this time it continued poaching and smuggling by locals, as well as the ongoing arrests by local authorities. In fact, in March 2021, three tons of live holothuroids were confiscated in 144 plastic buckets, whose next destination was Greece.

Because they are important
Holothyroids play an important role in dealing with the acidification of seawaterwhich is a result of climate change and it happens that there is a large amount of carbon dioxide in the water.

But although they are very important, the protection of holothyroids has become relatively difficult around the world. In the mid-1990s, only about 35 countries fished for sea cucumbers, while today at least 70 countries fish and trade them.

«They are easy to pick up by hand. They do not slip. They just sit there. And if you can dive deep, wherever you meet them, you just have to lift them off the ground.“, He states in Bloomberg o Steven Purcell, Professor of Marine Ecology at Southern Cross University in Australia.

Although fishing for holothuroids is a crime in Italy, demand has not declined. In July 2019, a woman was arrested at Rome International Airport for trying to pass a suitcase full of dried sea cucumbers. In fact, they were guarded so carefully, as if they were diamonds.

Money Review

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