Blueprint for brilliant beche-de-mer

A brand new guidebook to processing sea cucumbers is already making a splash internationally. Thanks to ACIAR-funded research aiming to improve livelihoods of village fishers in the Pacific, the booklet has been developed by project partners Southern Cross University and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.

Fisher in Kiribati collecting a leopardfish (photo S. Purcell)

Sea cucumbers have been hand-collected and exported from the Pacific Islands since the 1840s. Once processed to a dried product known as ‘beche-de-mer’ in the food world, they are particularly popular in China, used as a key luxury ingredient of festive dishes.

Top of the Crops! Top 10 nutritious leafy vegetables in the Pacific

An ACIAR-funded study on nutritionally rich leafy vegetables in the Pacific region has identified the ‘Top 10’ and produced a series of fact sheets to promote them to indigenous communities. The study’s goal is to encourage the production and consumption of these important food crops, to help combat the current epidemic of diet-related diseases in Pacific islanders and indigenous Australians.

Aibika for sale in markets in Suva, Fiji
Photo R Goebel

IN THE FIELD – Mabe, baby: Commemorating World Oceans Day

(in-country visits by ACIAR’s research program managers)

In May this year, ACIAR’s Fisheries program manager, Dr Chris Barlow, visited Papua New Guinea (PNG) to check out the progress of several fisheries projects (the inlandaquaculture project in Goroka and a mariculture project at Nago Island, Kavieng). Highlights of the trip included 'finding Nemo' and seeing some of the amazing work coming out of a pearl-development project...

Clownfish
(Image courtesy of Zelko Slamaj)