What's Up With Our Reefs

"Oh Lord, My God, when I in awesome wonder consider all the works Thy hands hath made...how great Thou art..."

Recently, I read Reef Check Malaysia's 2007 Survey Report. Things weren't too encouraging. A total of 33 surveys were conducted last year at 21 sites on 4 islands: Tioman, Tenggol, Redang and Perhentian. Here are some salient points from the report:

(1) The reefs are only in "fair" condition, with 42% hard coral coverage.

(2) The numbers of fish species targeted for food consumption are low in most areas, but fish species targeted for the aquarium trade are relatively abundant.

(3) The number of invertabrates targeted for food consumption and souvenir trade are low in all areas.

(4) Worst reef conditions were found in Perhentian with only 34% live coral cover. Tioman recorded the highest, with Tenggol a close second.

(5) All islands face key issues that have negative impacts on their coral reefs such as sewage pollution (resulting from rapid development of tourism facilities), poor solid waste management (this I've observed myself when I was in Perhentian a couple of years ago), physical impacts to reefs due to large visitor numbers, increased siltation from development projects and destructive fishing.


The Report put forward recommendations that were targeted mainly at government agencies, resort/dive operators and marine park authorities, but here are some things that you and I can do to help preserve our national treasure:

(1) Practise everyday environmental-friendly habits that improve pollution in general, stuff like minimising usage of electricity/water, recycling, etc....because the things that contribute to pollution, climate change and global warming is affecting ocean temperatures and subsequently harming coral reefs and marine life.

(2) Please lah don't order shark fin's soup. Shark fin is only there for the texture of the soup and does not enhance the taste at all, so whether you have the fin in there or not will not affect the taste of the soup.

(3) When at island resorts, go easy with the freshwater used for bathing, toilets, etc.

(4) Recycle as much as possible, and dispose of rubbish in designated bins.

(5) When snorkelling/diving, watch it and don't step on/crush/poke the coral reefs/marine life and send them to their death.