Liberia may be sitting on a potentially valuable trade in sea cucumbers with China, but as journalist Lucinda Rouse reports, it could also threaten its coastal ecosystem.
In late 2019, Wilson Nimley, a field officer from the Liberian fisheries authority, stumbled across a group of strangers living in one of the remote coastal communities under his watch. They turned out to be divers from Sierra Leone, on a mission prospecting for sea cucumbers.
These slimy, sausage-shaped members of the starfish family have no local market but are a valuable commodity in China as both a culinary delicacy and a medicinal ingredient.
Entering mainland China from around the world via Hong Kong, some varieties can fetch up to $6,000 (£4,300) per kilogram.
Neither Mr Nimley nor his superiors knew anything about the existence of these valuable creatures in Liberian waters.
But 37-year-old Abdoulaye Mansaray had been wise to the possibility since 2013, when Chinese divers operating a few hundred kilometres up the coast in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown, employed him to help process their sea cucumber catch. Initially earning $45 a month, he learned the trade and eventually formed his own team of local divers.
It can be a dangerous business: several of the divers’ wetsuits have been torn by the rocks, while forays into deeper water cause nosebleeds and headaches.
They continue to dive regardless and gather as many sea cucumbers as they can, returning to shore by early morning to unload their catch.
For every kilogram of wet cucumbers they bring, they earn $1.75. On a good night each diver might catch up to 50kg.
Then it is time for Abdoulaye Kanu, a former sales agent for a mobile phone network in Freetown, to get to work.
The 35-year-old says he earns three times as much processing sea cucumbers for Mr Mansaray.
He sits with a large bowl at his feet and methodically picks up the creatures one by one, using a sharp knife to release their innards before boiling them in a drum over a wood fire.
Once cooled, the cucumbers are smothered in salt and finally laid out to dry in the sun. By the time they are ready for export, the specimens are hard and shrivelled; their weight reduced by a factor of 30.
