Sea Urchin Aquaculture: Opportunities en LatinAmerica

RUBILAR, TAMARA

San Jose

Congreso; LatinAmerican & Caribbean Aquaculture; 2019

World Aquaculture Society

Sea urchin aquaculture it is in full development worldwide. The high market value of sea urchins gonads, the strong market demand and the decrease in the natural stocks stimulated the interest in aquaculture. Globally, there has been enough confidence in its viability to motivate a serious R&D effort in development of technology. The United States, China, Japan, Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Ecuador and Chile are developing culture systems. Ireland is the only country that has developed the UrchinPlatter System ?, it only includes the culture cages for hervibory species. Sea urchin aquaculture technology not only may maintain traditional fishing, by guaranteeing a supply of juveniles in the natural populations, but also generates a higher quality product and allows the development of biotechnology. Sea urchins are a culinary delicatessen, with Japan being the main market. However, sea urchin are also a source of secondary metabolites that have generated pharmacological formulas. In Latin America, the effort to generate sea urchin aquaculture has been strongly focused on Chile, they have developed it focus on the repopulation of habitats to sustain extractive activity. At the market level, aquaculture in RAS of the entire life cycle has proved not to be profitable in terms of business. However, in Argentina a sea urchin aquaculture Project it is focusing on multipurpose products. Increase of gamets productivity rich in secondary metabolites in a system with a semi-continuous manner, generates a sustainable alternative both environmental and profitable opportunity to generate products for the aquaculture, nutraceutical, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. However, this effort is not isolated, in Ecuador a similar project in collaboration with the Argentine one and with the support of the Latin American Network of Echinoderms and CYTED is beginning to be carried out, seeking to develop sea urchin aquaculture in Latin America not only for sustainable global culinary demand, but also to provide innovative products.