Sea cucumbers are eaten in the Central Pacific. H. fuscopunctata is not particularly esteemed, but it is eaten as a poverty food in times of hardship, such as after cyclones. It is mostly harvested by skin-diving, and is likely to face greater exploitation as other more favoured species become scarcer. There are fisheries in Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia; in Madagascar; in the Western Pacific, including the Torres Strait, and in Tuvalu. For the time being, the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern", but it is vulnerable to over-exploitation because of its low fertility rate.
