Earlier, Palau Sea Cucumber Hatchery Farm (PSCHF) said Gov. Reklai, Vicky Kanai of Airai and Romana Anastacio of Ngchesar States were “misled” by opponents of the project who themselves want to venture into the field of aquaculture development, but lack proper technological knowledge to do so. The PSCHF added that the three lady Governors were also misleading with regards to the PSCHF doing to promote the culturing of eremrum and other similar marine species as a viable industry that can bring economic benefits to many ordinary folks throughout Palau.
In her statement, Reklai said, “I see the unsustainable collection of all species and varieties of sea cucumbers (eremrum, molech, temetamel, bakelungal, delal a molech) in our State.This is being made possible by Palau Sea Cucumber Hatchery Farm and the Ministry of Resources, operating under the “so-called” research project license and exporting for commercial purposes, thousands of pounds of sea cucumber to Korea.”
The “omelalm el cheremrum”, or the reseeding that PSCHF is practicing, is called “sea ranching”, which means that they just throw juvenile sea cucumbers out into the ocean and come back to collect every speciesof sea cucumber on the ocean floor, and calling the process “cultured”.
Reklai said, what actually happened was that since November of 2009, PSCHF, with a research permit issued by Ministry of Resources to collect 150lbs of sea cucumber, went out and collected hundreds of pounds of sea cucumber to send out to their buyer in Korea.
“Once I raised the issue about this and our chiefs implemented a ‘bul’, they started buying directly from locals,” Reklai explained. “To this day, there is no specific farm identified for ‘culturing’ of sea cucumber in Aimeliik.Even if the chief of Medorm asked them to ‘seed’ the seabed of Medorm, that does not make any difference because they have collected and are now buying from the locals every species of sea cucumber there.”
She said the PSCHF requested to go to Medorm and “seed” the reef there in July 2010 but they have been collecting cucumbers since January 2010.
Reklai added that it is not illegal for them to collect and sell sea cucumber locally.What is illegal is for a company to export sea cucumbers out of Palau knowing full well that they are not cultured, that they were bought from people collecting wild sea cucumbers.
“And what is immoral,” she said, “is exploiting the country by taking advantage of people’s poor conditions, and using that as an excuse to justify financial gain. If this government finds that outright exportation of sea cucumber is what we need for our economic stimulus, repeal the law!”
Meanwhile, according to Gov. Kanai of Airai State, PSCHF project is not doing what they filed in their application for license. “We did not grant business license,” she said.
Kanai also added that there is no reply yet from the Ministry of Natural Resources Environment and Tourism regarding their letter asking Minister Harry Fritz to revoke the export permit of PSCHF and investigate the reportedly illegal harvesting and exportation activities of the farm.
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