Project Detail

Aquaculture of Pearl by the Local Community of Berkeh Khalaf Village, Qeshm Island (Pearls of Persian Gulf)

Project location:Qeshm(Lat./Long. : 26.9115614;56.1360000)

Project Location: Berkeh Khalaf village, Qeshm

Pilot Phase of the project

A study performed in 1998 showed that three main species of oyster Pinctada radiata, Pinctada margaritifera (Black Lip), and Pinctada pteria are native to the southern coasts of Qeshm Island.

Under the supervision of Mr. Mohammed Sharif Ranjbar, a marine biologist, the Community Organization of the Berkeh Khalaf Village Fishermen set up a pilot oyster farm in Qeshm in August 2001, and for the following two years the group gathered oysters for the farm and began cultivating them. They also studied their adaptability to the farm environment and interactions with other sea species.

Following this initial stage, some of the pearl oysters were ready for a procedure known as grafting or seeding, during which a bead or nucleus is implanted in the oyster causing it to produce a pearl many months later. After grafting, it usually takes 18-24 months for

+ View more

Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Berkeh Khalaf Community Group in Partnership with a team of Env. Experts

Country:

Iran

Area Of Work:

Biodiversity

Operational Phase:

Phase 2

Grant Amount:

US$ 25,000.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 162,500.00

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 24,500.00

Project Number:

IRA-G52-2003-031

Start Date:

12/2003

End Date:

12/2007

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Photo Gallery

Black Lip Oysters, Berkeh Khalaf Village, Qeshm Island, IRAN

View photo gallery

Project Characteristics and Results

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

By making fishermen aware of the damage caused to the marine habitat by extensive fishing, this project hopes to encourage a change in their working habits.
Pinctada margaritifera (Black Lip) an important species known mainly to live in the Indo-Pacific region has become rare around the world due to decades of over-fishing. Sixty percent of the black lip oysters, which produces some of the best and most prized pearls, will be released in the identified natural oyster beds.

Capacity - Building Component

Due to the complete practical involvement of the local fishermen of this community group in maintaining the farm they are ‎now trained in the aquaculture techniques and the monitoring of biological parameters along with the environmental conditions. Since ‎they have complete comprehension for the reasoning behind rearing techniques of rack and long-line, they are able to apply their ‎practical knowledge of the sea (interaction of the farm with other aquatic organisms, tide, climatic and seasonal changes, etc.) to ‎manage the oyster farm.
The community group of the project team has gained a lot of knowledge on the cultivation of oysters in ‎the existing conditions of the waters around Qeshm and the nearby islands. A layman?s manual is being prepared based on the ‎international standard procedures mixed with the indigenous techniques and modified to suit the local conditions.
Additionally ‎they have also been trained in scuba diving for collection of oysters and spat.With the financial support of this project, the community ‎group is now equipped with two complete sets of scuba diving equipment which is also shared with another SGP project within the ‎Qeshm cluster (the SGP Artificial Reef project for rehabilitation of marine resources in Salakh Village - IRA-G52-2001-005). They ‎were also able to procure suitable grafting equipment and seeds.‎

Notable Community Participation

Since pearl culturing is a business venture commonly undertaken by financially affluent enterprises, this pilot project is unique because it is a community-based effort to produce pearls through the aquaculture of oysters. The inspiration for this initiative came from a university thesis written by Mohammed Sharif Ranjbar, a marine biologist, which had ‎led him to set up a pilot farm using standard rearing techniques of rack and long-line with the fishermen of Berkeh Khalaf village. ‎Later this group of fishermen started the oyster farm in late 2001 with the collection of 1000 oysters from around the island and they ‎need to spend one week to 10 days a month taking care of the oyster farm. With the support of this GEF/SGP project the initial farm is ‎now an oyster bank with 10,000 oysters (as per count in October 2006).‎

Gender Focus

The grafting procedure which is basically nuclei injection to implant a bead in the oyster, needs delicate handling skills, ‎therefore it is undertaken only by women. In the pilot phase 3 local women were trained with basic equipment. By ‎‎2007 a total of 7 women from Berkeh Khalaf Village (4) Ramcha Village (2) and Dargahan Village (1) were trained in grafting ‎procedures of pearl oysters in a 15 day course.
In support of income generation for women, the project also had a training component for qelim weaving to promote the local ‎handicraft with conservation motifs. Training was provided for 32 women in Ramcha village and 15 women in Berkeh Khalaf Village ‎with the support of Qeshm Free Area.‎ This initiative has linked with another SGP project ?Conservation Art for Hawksbill Turtle? (IRA-G52-2004-046) in which 24 ‎of these women have set up a community revolving fund to empower them in producing and marketing local handicraft (qelim and ‎needlework) with conservation motif. ‎

Project Results

Results of activities and studies to date

‎1- Based on the survey of the project team limited to 30m scuba diving, the natural distribution of oyster (beds) was observed ‎from shallow coastal waters to depths of about 30m. However, they could also occur in deeper waters, particularly black lip ‎and pteria.
2-Survey of these pearl oyster beds indicated poor recruitment (breeding) of spats due to the low ‎density and dispersed occurrence of the stocks in the natural beds. However, collection of adult oysters and establishment of ‎oyster banks have produced desirable results.
3-The project has been successful in culturing oysters as the monthly ‎percentage morality rate of the cultured oysters was very low and ranged from 0 to 5%.
4- The oyster farm has grown into ‎an oyster bank of brood stock (mother oysters) for the two species with 2 floating lines and 10,000 oysters from cultivation and ‎collection of spat. This farm is completely under the management of the community group with technical support of ‎environmental experts such as Mr. M.S. Ranjbar, Dr. P. Koochinin and Dr. V. Yavari.
5-With deep scuba the team ‎collected 50 adult Black Lip Oysters from the oyster beds. In the first year the team was able to breed 300 spats and release ‎‎300 one year old Black Lip oysters back in the nature.
6-As a result of the successful spat culturing of P. ‎radiata and P. margaritifera within in the first two years (2003-2005), the project received further additional co-‎funding to increase the scope of this pilot project from Qeshm Free Area (40%) and Management and Planning Organization ‎‎(60%) via a research grant of USD141,000 which is implemented by Khorramshahr University of Marine Science and ‎Technology.
7-The standardization of nucleus implantation took place in Mar-Apr 2006 which is implementing a standard ‎technique as per the existing conditions in Qeshm Island. As in all other activities the standardization of procedures were ‎conducted with the cooperation of the local community (in this case 7 women) with the objective of on the job training. As ‎expected the survival rate of the oysters implanted by the trainees in their first attempt was low (5 to 10%), however, the ‎survival rate of the 120 oysters grafted by expert/trainer was around 60%.
8-The pilot project started with a community ‎group of 5 households of fishermen which has now doubled to included members from other villages as well and its ‎membership stands at Berkeh Khalaf 7, Mesn 1, Hengam 1, Ramcha 1.
9 ? The handicraft training initiative for women ‎resulted in the formation of a community group of 24 women who have established a revolving fund which is linked with ‎another SGP project ?Conservation Art for Hawksbill Turtle? (IRA-G52-2004-046) to empower them in producing and ‎marketing local handicraft (qelim and ‎needlework) with conservation motif.
10- In support of this project and to expand ‎the knowledge to community members a second project has been approved for the Qeshm Cluster in this regard (IRA/06/04 ‎‎(71ST)).‎

‎Project outreach and information dissemination

The project had a poster presentation in the 3rd IUCN Conservation Congress, Bangkok in 2004
The project had another ‎poster presentation in the 1st Marine Protected Areas International Conference, Geelong, Australia in Oct. 2005
An article of ‎this project was presented and published for the International Symposium on ?Sustainable Fisheries Development For Food And ‎Health Security?, College of Fisheries, Mangalore, India, Dec 20-21 2006.
The website of the project is being developed and ‎the 1st draft of the "How to do" layman's manual is being edited. ‎

+ View more

Indicators

Biophysical

Number of globally significant species protected by project 2

Empowerment

Number of CBOs / NGOs participated / involved in SGP project 1

Back to search results

Countries

Regions

Project Snapshot

Photo Gallery

SGP Country office contact

Address

Country Website