Currently there are small scale (<150 tonne p.a.) intermittent fisheries for sea urchins in the NPA. This is despite there being enormous sea urchin resources present in the area...
There are a number of challenges that have prevented the expansion of sea urchin fisheries in the NPA. These include environmental challenges to fishing, inadequate and inappropriate legislation and fisheries management and lack of technology and knowledge regarding sea ranching and roe enhancement of poor quality urchins...
Research to overcome these challenges has been disparate and there has been no transfer of knowledge between the NPA partner countries.