At 8 a.m., 15 divers from the Artisanal Fishers Association Cristóbal Colón meet on Carrizales beach in the Marcona district of Nazca province in southern Peru. They tie a mesh bag to their waist and get into the water. An hour later, they have collected 750 kilograms (1,653 pounds) of red sea urchins. Back on shore, the divers’ wives take the animals, put them in boxes and give them to the middlemen. They remove the urchins’ reproductive systems, or gonads, freeze them and send them to Asia, where a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of this product, used in gourmet dishes, can cost up to $1,000. The red sea urchin (Loxechinus albus) is one of the most important sea resources that artisanal fishers exploit in Peru. Its extraction area goes from the city of Pisco (south of the capital, Lima) to the country’s southern border and can reach 35 meters (114 feet) of depth. Unlike other artisanal associations, the Cristóbal Colón fishers practice free diving. That means they dive without oxygen tanks; they rely solely on their own capacity to keep air in their lungs at depths of more than 10 meters (32 feet). Edgar Coqhi Quispe, one of the divers in the association, uses only his diving suit, glasses, fins and a snorkel to do his job. He was 14 when he first went diving. He says his father introduced him to the sea. “Already in the ‘90s, my family was collecting urchins by free diving,” Coqhi says. “At the time,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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