An Aboriginal-owned sea cucumber processor in Denham puts a cosmetic twist on Australia’s oldest trade.
AUSTRALIA’S sea cucumber trade predates European settlement by more than 200 years.
Archaeological evidence has confirmed Indigenous people in northern Australia traded the marine invertebrate with seafarers from South-East Asia as early as the 1600s.
That is around the time the British East India Trading Company, which would eventually control trade from Australia, was established.
If Malgana man Michael Wear has his way, the trade could soon take on a much more modern tone.
“During climate week in New York … I was at a restaurant, and I gave this guy from JP Morgan a three-minute pitch, and he loved it, Mr Wear told Business News.
“He said, ‘This is a $1 billion idea and once you get into the Western markets, particularly the US, it will sell quite well’.”
The market to which the man from JP Morgan was referring was the health and beauty industry.
Sea cucumber, known as trepang when dried, is an abundant natural source of collagen peptides used in creams, moisturisers and serums.
It is this Mr Wear wants to harness to sell to US and European cosmetics giants.
“I have been trying for five years to get these creams off the ground,” he said.
Mr Wear’s ambition is tying in with work under way at Murdoch University’s Australian National Phenome Centre to draw on Indigenous and Western scientific knowledge of sea cucumber properties that could benefit the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industries.
Among those backing him are former US consul general to Western Australia Siriana Nair, Melbourne’s billionaire Buxton family, the Jock Clough Marine Foundation, and WA’s universities.
Through his business, Tidal Moon, Mr Wear has been working with researchers on seagrass restoration, algae production, aquaculture and pharmaceutical components to bring his business vision together.
Put simply, the aquaculture component enables mass production without risking overfishing, the algae provides a powerful food source, the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical component diversifies markets, and the seagrass restoration helps to sell the product to environmentally conscious customers.
This all ties in nicely to Mr Wear’s traditional lands, home to the Shark Bay World Heritage area, which also happens to be home to the largest seagrass meadow in the world.
Food for thought
It is unlikely there was much interest in the pharmaceutical power of trepang in the pre-colonial trade.
Back then, it was traded primarily as food, as is the case today.
Trepang is a delicacy in China and traders pay handsomely to secure them from Australian waters.
It is also subject to substantial illegal fishing efforts off Australia’s northern coast.
Until now, Mr Wear has been harvesting a few tonnes for the local market.
The processing centre will enable him to scale up for exports.
“China wants exclusive deals, but you have to go through the process of seeing who is good, who is bad and building that working relationship,” Mr Wear said.
“Demand is through the roof; you can never oversupply this market.”
Ultimately, Mr Wear wants to turn Tidal Moon into an aquaculture company that grows sea cucumber onshore, meaning he’ll no longer need to take from nature.
“If we can breed them, we can have it more controlled,” he said.
“We can explore different markets, we have the creams and collagens, and the biomedical market.
“We are talking to some multinational cosmetic corporations, which are very keen to look at products that help the environment.”
A business plan is being drawn up now to achieve this, with one more permit required from the state government to get the ball rolling.
Denham drive
Mr Wear has had a diverse career, including stints at Fulton Hogan, Chevron, and Cancer Council WA.
It was during his time at the Cancer Council he first considered the potential of, and opportunities for, the seafood he and his father fished for in the waters of Shark Bay years ago.
“We were doing all the palliative care programs with the Perkins guys over there in Subiaco,” Mr Wear said.
“During that process, sea cucumbers came up a couple of times as an anti-cancer agent.”
Observing a marine heatwave in Shark Bay also fed Mr Wear’s curiosity.
“The seagrass was stressed, a lot of it died,” he said.
“But in nature, you always look for trade-offs.
“What we noticed was sea cucumbers grew larger.
“I saw a model based on a commodity that can help seagrass restoration and bring jobs back to Shark Bay.”
The seagrass restoration side of the business has been working with lead researcher Jen Verduin from Murdoch University to prevent the release of carbon dioxide from under Shark Bay’s seagrass meadows.
The solution, as Mr Wear explains it, sounds simple: pick up seagrass before it washes up on shore and translocate it out to deeper water.
That endeavour should help promote the profit-making side of the business, too, Mr Wear said. So does the prospect of Indigenous employment.
Mr Wear is a firm believer in economic empowerment as a tool to close the gap.
“We can certify it to say that every time you buy our products, it goes back into seagrass restoration,” Mr Wear said.
“So as long as people buy our products, we can keep restoring seagrass and we can keep employing people around here.”
“Once you are economically sound and you have an output that you can feed your family, you can move up into that middle class.”
Mr Wear said Tidal Moon could become the first large aquaculture processing site between Geraldton and Broome, which would provide an employment pathway outside of tourism, government or environment for Indigenous people.
