“The sea cucumber isn’t quite as sexy as the shark.”

The China Channel has published an interesting piece about Branco Weiss Alumni Michael Fabinyi’s work on Chinese seafood markets.

The article titled “Of Sea Cucumbers and Men” centers around the skyrocketing demand for the beche-de-mer, a prized feature of Chinese wedding banquets causing impacts ranging from international sea-cucumber smuggling syndicates to a thriving black market to a collapse in sea-cucumber stocks. And while a high-profile campaign with a basketball superstar has helped to reduce the level of shark fin consumption in China, Michael Fabinyi sees a bleak future for the bottom dweller: “The sea cucumber isn’t quite as sexy, shall we say, as the shark.”

The China Channel is an affiliated channel of the Los Angeles Review of Books, funded by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and with further support from the UCI Long US-China Institute. The channel’s aim is to paint a more complete picture of China that brings to life Chinese culture, society and history in all its complexity.

Read it on the China Channel website