Tahitian Pearl History

Soon after the arrival of Europeans in French Polynesia large beds of natural black-lip pearl oysters (Pinctada margaritifera) were discovered in many of the Tuamotu atolls and the Gambier Islands. These were exploited principally for the value of their mother-of-pearl shell which was in great demand for the manufacture of buttons, inlay work and bric-a-brac. Local divers ransacked the prolific beds of these pearl oysters and the lack of control of the industry soon led to the depletion of the natural stocks.

In 1961 Jean-Marie Domard, a Frenchman responsible for marine resources in Bora Bora, arranged with an Australian company to send a group of Japanese pearl seeding technicians who were experienced in growing pearls in the Australian silver-lip pearl oysters to operate on five thousand pearl oysters which were transported from the Tuamotu atolls to Bora Bora. After two years the resultant black or Tahitian pearls created great excitement as this was the first time in the world that pearls were produced from this species.

Several local people attempted to grow pearls after it had proven successful but the only one to succeed on a small scale was Koko Chaze who managed to grow half-pearls or mabe on a small scale at Rangiroa Atoll. A noted French pearl merchant, Jacques Rosenthal, while visiting Tahiti, came into contact with Koko Chaze who asked for his assistance. Rosenthal later engaged a marine biologist, Bill Reed, who had worked on black-lip pearl oysters in the Sudanese Red Sea, to help Koko to establish a peal farm at Manihi Atoll. This was the first commercial pearl farm in French Polynesia but, for a start they concentrated on growing mabepearls.While working in the Red Sea Reed had developed a method of collecting the post-larvae (spat) of pearl oysters and growing them to a marketable size. Because of the scarcity of natural pearl oyster stock Reed recommended that attempts be made to do the same in many of the Tuamotu atolls. Rosenthal introduced Reed to some of the local government authorities who offered him a five year contract working with the local Service de la Peche to experiment with spat collection and pearl oyster rearing as this would provide a reliable source of pearl oysters for the large-scale development of pearl culture.

After completing his contract with the Tahitian government Reed established a commercial pearl farm at MangarevaAtoll in the Gambier Islands. Reed and his associates later sold their company –Tahiti Perles - to the dynamic local businessman, Robert Wan, who now has the largest South Sea pearl farm in the world. There are now almost 1000 pearl farms throughout French Polynesia producing in the vicinity of ten thousand kilos (around 5,000,000 pearls) annually. But the demand for Tahitian pearls has expanded greatly and there never seems to be enough fine quality pearls for a pearl-hungry world.