BORNEO EXPERIENCE

Your Act of Leisure can contribute to the conservation of Coral reef. How?

Blast fishing has been the main cause of coral reef destruction in South East Asia. The most effective way to ensure coral reef survival is by making people stop fish bombing practice. And to make them stop we need to teach them to appreciate the reef, that is by making them realise that a beautiful reef can bring more income being left as it is than to destroy them.

In this homestay program, we aim to get the as many villagers to cooperate with us by taking tourists to sites that they frequently visit to harvest sea shells in which we know that these sites have not been bombed in recent years as these would be the sites where they would be diving. They would get paid by the number of people going on their boat, so they would want more tourist to come because it would mean more money for them. Our hope is, after a while they would realize that tourism make better money than bombing fishes and that they would hopefully stop bombing altogether.

The Bajau people have a bad reputation as fish bomber all over Sabah. Not only that, they also practice catching live fish using hydrocyanic acid that kills coral reef. The reason for them is clear; as small time fishermen using small boats, they can't afford to risk their lives fishing in the open sea. Using their net over the reef is unthinkable for those poor fishermen as the coral will just rip their nets apart and mending them would be expensive and time consuming let alone buying a new one.

In the late 1960s, a cheap solution to their problem comes in the form of gunpowder and soda bottle. Later when gunpowder distribution was regulated and restricted, they switch to the much cheaper mixture of fertilizer and diesel. As the Bajau are natural seafarer, they know where the congregation of fish will be just by looking on the surface and occasionally dipping their head in the water. They would stay near to shore with a few bottles of home made bomb and began blasting the school of fish as soon as they swim underneath the small boat. This practice save them the trouble of lifting the heavy fishing net and risking any damage to their net from the sharp coral.

small boat like this one was once used for fish bombing in along the shoreline

During the 1990s, increasing demand for live fish from China and Hong Kong has made the business of live fish trade bloom in Sabah. The Chinese traders had taught Bajau breath-hold divers of how to capture big fish from under the corals using Cyanide. The liquid is put inside a plastic bottle and squirted into coral crevices. The acidic substance will stunned the big fish upon contact, making them easier to catch while at the same time killing smaller fishes. The use of cyanide itself is not very damaging to the coral reef as the impact would be slow and only affecting the immediate area in contact with the substance. But most damage are done by the fishermen who would turn the coral boulders upside down, smashing it into smaller pieces to look for the fishes that are hiding inside coral crevices.

The government has taken the matter seiously and banned all catch that were obtained using destructive methods, to the extent that Fisheries Officers would do random checks in fish markets and confiscate all bombed fish. However, it is impossible to stop those people from practising what they think as the easiest way to make a living. Unless they can earn better income by other means, they will still continue to do what they have been doing for years.

One way to give those people an alternative income is through tourism activities. Although been heavily bombed during the 1980s, Usukan Bay still has a few beautiful spots saved from the blasting activities. Having done some dives and snorkeling within the bay in 2005, I have discovered some of the reef are rapidly recovering with many hard corals, especially on the sites nearer to the main road. On the contrary, sites further out of the bay shown very bad destruction with dead corals thickly overgrown by algae. There were also signs of recent blasting as we also found shattered live corals. However, a dive just outside the bay where the water rapidly sloping down showed a majestic reef life so stunning even for my friend who is an elderly dive instructor and have gone to many places. The reef, called Uban-Uban Rock has extensive damage on where it starts at about 3 metre deep, but as it reaches down to 15 metre the scenery changed rather dramatically to an abundance of fishes, hard and soft corals, sponges, and sea fans. During our dive on that site we were lucky enough to see a 7-foot long banded seasnake. The slope ends at 25 metre with just sand beneath. On the way up, we followed the slope up heading south west and found a mooring metal block at 8 metre deep. Suspicion is that is was used either by the British or Japanese Navy to berth their ship as the bay used to be an important harbor during the British and Japanese occupation. Until now, the old jetty is still being used by Shell, the oil company to transport their staff to their offshore platform.

A pair of banded coral shrimp between layers of hard corals shown in actual size. Note that the Lobophyllia sp.coral the shrimp is sitting on looks like it just has recently grown as well as the Pectinia sp. in front. Young corals like these may not last long if the bombings are to continue.