More than 50 kilograms of dried beche-de-mer have been seized by police in Solomon Islands' Malaita Province.
Beche-de-mer Photo: Flickr/ John Turnbull
A man was arrested during a raid by police and fisheries officers on a warehouse in Auki, where the banned seafood was confiscated.
Police said the raid followed a tip-off that a businessman was engaged in buying beche-de-mer, or sea cucumber, despite a ban on its harvest and sale.
The Solomons' Director of Fisheries Edward Honiwala said the raid served as warning to others involved with poaching the animals.
He said the purpose of the ban was to allow depleted stocks of the marine delicacy to replenish, and he said those who continued to harvest beche-de-mer were stealing the resource from future generations.
Mr Honiwala said anyone with knowledge of beche-de-mer poaching should report it to police or fisheries officers.
