Last year, Reef Check Malaysia launched a campaign to raise awareness of the damage caused by fish bombing. We all know that it is still being practiced in Malaysia, especially in East Malaysia. And that is about as much as we are aware of. There is very little data to show the frequency of fish bombing, or the prime locations that fish bombers visit.

In order for effective management of fish bombing, the first phase of the campaign is to collect data on fish bombing incidents. The success of our campaign relies almost totally on the cooperation of the public, especially divers and dive operators. Once ample data is collected in the form of reports of fish bombing activity, we can then move on to working with relevant authorities to eradicate the practice.

So far, we have been receiving reports sporadically, which is a start, but we need more. From our own experience diving around the islands off Semporna, bombing is a daily occurrence, and we are appealing to divers and dive operators alike to help us to collect this essential data.

We here at RCM would like to share excerpts of an email that was sent by a concerned diver diving recently off Mantabuan Island near Semporna.

The concerned diver has dived most of the islands in the Tun Sakaran Marine Park and reckons that Mantabuan has “the most beautiful and diverse coral reef of all”. However, he is shocked at the degradation of the reefs over only a matter of days due to fish bombing.

He states,” I visited Mantabuan again today and am extremely sorry to report that the situation has gotten much worse. On one dive alone there must have been thousands of dead fish on the reef and several new areas had been bombed since I was there a few days ago. Two extremely loud explosions were also heard whilst I was on the first dive. On the final dive a newly dead turtle was seen with a large crack in its shell. I can only think that this occurred as a result of bombing as the turtle was surrounded by dead fish. All the divers were shocked by the sad sights experienced today and could not believe that the practice of fish bombing exists in Sabah.”

The picture painted is a very grim one. And the reality is that this happens every day, and is not limited to just Mantabuan Island. Fish bombing is illegal, and it is up to all of us to put an end to it. Our concerned diver puts it best, “These destructive practices not only damage the reef forever but will also have a knock on effect of a reduction of tourist numbers. If there is no reef left, there will be no fish and therefore no divers in the future. I see that there is a currently a big push to save sharks in Sabah but they will only return to the reef if it is healthy and contains enough prey to support a shark population. It is therefore extremely important that the coral reefs in this area are protected for future generations.”

We urge divers to report incidents of fish bombs if you hear one or know of someone who has heard explosions while diving. It only takes two minutes to submit an online report at http://www.reefcheck.org.my/?page_id=924 or send us a text at 010-3636013. Together, we can make a difference.

Below are some recently taken pictures of rocks that have been blasted at diving sites in East Malaysia

To all EcoDivers out there!

Survey dates are out!

Click on Survey dates 2012 to find out how you can reserve your spot.

Limited spaces are available, so please book early!

The Institute of Ocean & Earth Sciences (IOES), University of Malaya, is looking to recruit Senior Lecturers in the following fields:

1. Marine Geology,
2. Physical oceanography/ Meteorology,
3. Coastal Engineering
4. Renewable Energy (Wind, Wave, Solar)
5. Large Marine Mammals / Endangered Marine Animals
6. Coral Biology
7. Planktonology
8. Marine Biogeochemistry
9. Maritime Socio-Economy / Maritime Culture & History
10. Marine Law & Policy

1. Marine Geology
Ph.D. in marine geology or marine sedimentology with experience in marine geological research either on marine clastic sedimentary system, marine processes and their relationship with sediment transport and provenance or marine carbonate system, carbonate production and early diagenesis. Application of basic sedimentological and marine geological knowledge to ecosystem dynamics and petroleum geology and ecosystem conservation.

2. Physical Oceanography/ Meteorology
Ph.D. (Physical Oceanography) with research experience in circulation patterns in Southeast Asia, monsoon circulation and dynamics. Energy exchange between sea and atmosphere. Impact of global climate change.

3. Coastal Engineering
Ph.D. in coastal engineering with experience in coastal research or related research areas; field instrumentation and monitoring of study sites as well as a working experience in relevant computer software.

4. Renewable Energy (Wind, Wave, Solar)
Ph.D. in power generation with experience in research related to harnessing renewable energy; experience in sustainability and environmental issues relevant to finite energy resources.

5. Large Marine Mammals / Endangered Marine Animals
Ph.D. in marine biology, with a strong background and research experience in the field of marine mammology, ornithology or/and herpetology. Experience in large marine animal protection and conservation work will be an advantage.

6. Coral Biology
Ph.D. in marine biology/ecology, with good experience in coral reef work. Expertise in coral taxonomy and reef ecology, or coral physiology, calcification and coral bleaching. Experience with coral conservation and regeneration work will be an advantage.

7. Planktonology
Ph.D. in marine biology/ecology, with a good background/experience in marine plankton research. Candidate must be familiar with basic oceanographic samplings of water and plankton, conduct, plan and mount ocean cruises as required; expertise in tropical plankton taxonomy.

8. Marine Biogeochemistry
Ph.D. in marine biogeochemistry, environmental chemistry or chemistry. Expertise in mass balance and ocean-atmospheric exchanges, carbon flow modeling for marine ecosystems, stable isotopic tracers/lipid footprints in elucidating marine food chains, or marine particle flux and exchanges during monsoons. OR research experience in biogeochemical cycling of major and minor elements and impact of humans on these. Chemistry of radioactive and stable isotopes. Transport of climatic relevant biogeochemical tracers (C,O,N) within ocean and across its boundaries with atmosphere and sediment.

9. Maritime Socio-Economy / Maritime Culture & History
a) Maritime Culture & History (priority)
Research experience in culture and history of the coastal or maritime communities. The research could be in one of many fields in culture and arts i.e. ritual, performing arts (music and dance). Publications must show an interest in culture or any genre in the performing arts belongs to the coastal and maritime community.
or;
b) Maritime Socio-Economy
Research experience in social and economics studies. Experience in fieldwork among the coastal and maritime communities is necessary. Publications must show interest in socio-economics of the coastal and maritime communities.

10. Marine Law & Policy
Candidates who have passed their public international law and capable of research work in the public international law of the sea are required. Candidates who have done their LLM or PhD in the maritime carriage of goods by sea, marine insurance or conflict of laws are required. Candidates with a background in law and science and law and economic policy respectively are welcome.

Terms:

Senior Lecturer DS51 (Local and International)

1. Salary & Allowances: RM 6173.47 to RM 8039.44/month
(USD 1954.81 to USD 2545.66/month)

2. Medical Benefits
The university will pay all charges incurred you for medical attention and attendance by a member of the University’s panel of doctors. Where specialist treatment or hospitalization is needed, you shall use Government Hospitals and the University of Malaya medical Centre only. The University, however, will not pay for medical and surgical appliances.

3. Annual Leave
During the period of your engagement, you are entitled for Annual Leave calculated at the rate of twenty five (25) days per year.

4. Medical Leave
During the period of your engagement, you are entitled for medical leave of not more than fifteen (15) days certified by University of Malaya panel of doctors or appropriate Government Hospital authorities. In case of emergency, where you cannot be attended to by the by University of Malaya panel of doctors or appropriate Government Hospital authorities, a certificate of recommendation by a registered medical practitioner who attended to you during such an emergency maybe accepted subject to certification by University of Malaya panel of doctors.

Senior Lecturer DS51 (International only)
Air Passage
The university will provide a single return Apex/Budget air passage or, where this is not available, normal economy air passage by the most direct route to Malaysia.

Visa & Employment Pass
This offer is subjected to the Malaysian Immigration Authority issuing you with a valid Visa and Employment Pass. Your appointment and continued employment with the University shall be only for the duration of the validity of the Visa and Employment Pass.

Tax Rate
In general, an individual is considered not resident if his duration of stay in Malaysia is less than 182 days in a calendar year. However there are other circumstances that may determine the residence status of an individual. Reference may be made to Public Ruling No.2/2005 which can be down loaded from this website: http://www.hasil.org.my. The tax rates that apply to the chargeable income depend on the resident status of an individual for tax purposes.
Income from employment (i.e. any wages, honorarium fees, salaries and other similar remuneration including benefits in kind e.g. the use of a residence or automobile) of an individual not resident in Malaysia is taxed at a flat rate of 28% and is not entitled to any personal relief.

All applications can be made by submission of a Full CV and a short write-up (1 page) of how the candidate can contribute to the IOES in his area of expertise.

Deadline: 8.12.11

For information: Director, IOES
Email: phang@um.edu.my

For the past six months, Reef Check Malaysia has been working with UKM scientist Kee Alfian and the Department of Marine Parks Malaysia on a coral rehabilitation project in Pulau Tioman.

On the 26th of November 2011, a launch event was held in Pulau Tioman for the project. The launch is a communication and education exercise to increase awareness whilst also garnering support for the project from the locals. The Secretary General of the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, Datuk Zoal Azha Yusof, was present to launch the event. In conjunction with the launch, a Memorandum of Understanding was also signed between DMPM, NRE and Reef Check Malaysia.

During the launch ceremony organised by the Department of Marine Parks Malaysia, Reef Check Malaysia took the opportunity to set up an “information hub” to introduce the project to visitors and the local community and to educate the public on the value of coral reefs and the need to protect them. Banners with information on coral reefs and the project were displayed along with a short video clip on the process of the project was screened.

The coral rehabilitation method that we have embarked on involves collecting coral fragments from donor sites and planting them in a nursery to allow them to stabilize and grow before finally transplanting them to a permanent site. The key is to actively maintain the nurseries while the coral transplants are stabilising, keeping them free from silt and algae, reducing mortality rate resulting in more effective rehabilitation.

For the past months, East Divers Tioman and B&J Dive Centre have been helping to maintain the nurseries on a voluntary basis. The methodology is designed so that it is easy for dive operators and community members to take part.

The positive results that have been gathered over the past months are very encouraging and more coral nursery frames have been added. After the monsoon season ends, these nurseries will be populated.

There is still much to do on Pulau Tioman in order to effectively preserve the coral reef ecosystems off the Island. The interest expressed by the NRE of Malaysia truly represents the importance of doing so. RCM, together with the DMPM, will continue to work with stakeholders and the local community towards achieving this goal.

Click here to view more pictures of the launch

The ever increasing number of scuba divers and snorkelers is leading to growing concerns about the amount of damage these users cause to coral reefs. Underwater recreational activities, including both scuba diving and snorkeling, allow us to explore the amazing underwater world and its beautiful marine creatures – but what if we end up destroying it? We need to give serious attention to improve our diving – or snorkeling – skills and managing our behaviour underwater.

Various studies have been conducted to assess diver impact by following divers, observing their underwater behavior and recording reef damage. The studies identified the following major contacts made by divers – and some snorkelers:

- fining/kicking against the bottom
- kneeling/standing on the bottom
- clutching/holding corals
- touching corals
- dragging equipment

How do these activities cause damage? Fin kicking is the greatest threat as it causes breakage and abrasion of living corals and reduces visibility from the stirred up sediments. Even though these impacts may be unintentional, the impact to the coral reef can be lethal and the injured corals may take years to recover. The studies also noticed that some divers hold onto corals while diving in strong currents or to gain control of their movements.

But how much damage do divers really cause? The studies measured damage rate in “frequency of break/contact per minute”, and the amount of damage was found to vary widely among individuals. Generally, increasing reef contact and damage were highest among “unlimited diving” groups and unsupervised day and night dives. It was reported that divers using cameras have significantly more contacts with the reef than those without cameras (1.6 breaks per 10 minutes versus 0.3 breaks per 10 minutes). Imagine the damage done by a group of unsupervised divers with cameras, diving for about 50 minutes. How much more damage can our remaining coral reefs take?

Here are some things divers do that contribute to reef damage. Are you one of these divers? Have you seen this before?

So what can we do? Any experienced diver knows that no-one can dive perfectly when they first get certified. So perhaps dive training should encompass more environmental education to educate divers on their environmental protection responsibilities, while providing them with ways to perfect neutral buoyancy. As evidence to support this, research shows that guided diving effectively reduces the frequency of reef contact from 0.3 to 0.1 contacts per minute. Meanwhile, a short briefing or educational talk prior to diving also helped in stimulating divers consciously to avoid unnecessary contacts with living reef communities.

Divers need to bear in mind that a little effort will make big difference. Coral reefs continue to deteriorate from both natural threats (such as global warming and mass coral bleaching) and anthropogenic impacts such as sewage pollution, sedimentation, destructive fishing practices, poor solid waste disposal system and coastal development. There is a clear need for more serious attention to managing our declining natural resources. If the current degradation continues unabated, more than half of the world’s coral reefs may be lost in the near future. Therefore, the remaining reefs require immediate actions to minimize localized stresses and build up resilience to help reefs adapt to the changing climate.

What can you do to save the coral reefs?

• Be a responsible diver and snorkeler – practice good buoyancy control, never harass or touch marine life
• Be a responsible underwater photographer and videographer – avoid contact with the bottom, check the surroundings before landing if you must, and land only on sand or dead corals but not LIVE corals
• Be an EcoDiver – take up the EcoDiver training course and participate in coral reef surveys
• Support marine conservation – report observations or environmental issues noticed to the relevant authorities (dive shop, marine park, Reef Check, etc)
• Participate in environmental awareness programmes to help safeguard our marine resources
• Remember always: “take only photographs and leave only footprints”

Reef Check Malaysia is looking to hire a Programme Manager to be based in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. Interviews will be held in KK from 5-9 December 2011. Please click here for more information.

Tourism is an important sector for the Malaysian economy. The formation of the Tourism Development Corporation in 1972 marked a new era for the tourism industry and today, tourism takes one of the leading roles in our economy. It is the second largest foreign exchange earner, only falling short of manufacturing. In 2010, revenue generated from tourism totalled RM 56.49 billion. The targeted 24 million tourists were also surpassed by 577,000 visitors. In Malaysia, the service sector is the largest and contributes 52.4% of GDP and constitutes 48.6% of total employment. It is safe to say that the tourism industry is very important not just for the country’s economic growth but also job provision.

The most distinct and charming aspect of Malaysian tourism is the country’s cultural and natural heritage. While cultural and historical tourist attractions can be found in destinations such as Malacca and Penang, eco and agro-tourism activities are more popular in the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia, and Sabah and Sarawak in East Malaysia. The quality of the environment, both natural and man-made is therefore essential to tourism.

However, many tourist activities can have adverse environmental effects. Many of these impacts are linked with the construction of general infrastructure such as roads and airports, and tourism facilities including resorts, hotels, restaurants, shops, golf courses and marinas. These negative impacts of tourism development can gradually destroy the environmental resources on which it depends. Such negative impacts occur when the level of visitor use is greater than the environment’s ability to cope with this use within acceptable limits of change.

Uncontrolled conventional tourism poses potential threats to many natural areas not only in Malaysia but also around the world. It can put enormous pressure on an area and this can lead to impacts such as: soil erosion, increased pollution, discharges into the sea, natural habitat loss, increased pressure on endangered species and heightened vulnerability to forest fires. It very often puts a strain on water resources, and this can force local populations to compete for the use of critical resources. For example, in the Mediterranean, where water scarcity is of particular concern, the usage of water by tourists is almost double what the inhabitants of an average Spanish city use.

Hence, just like everything else in life, a balance needs to be found. Tourism has the potential to create beneficial effects on the environment by contributing to environmental protection and conservation. It can help to raise awareness of environmental values and it can serve as a tool to finance protection of natural areas and increase their economic importance.

“Sustainable tourism” is a phrase that is very commonly used now. There is no doubt that climate change is affecting our planet and it can have a dramatic effect on tourism with rising temperatures, extreme weather patterns as well as water shortages. Even so, tourism is predicted to grow rapidly and hotels and other accommodations, together with tourists need to do everything they can to minimise the environmental impact of their business and reduce carbon emissions. For example, up to 70% of laundry is towels and bed linens used for one day. Most of us do not practice this habit at home, so why then do it when staying at a hotel? Implementing a towel and bed linen reuse programme can reduce the amount of material processed in the laundry by 39600kg per year and reduce consumption of laundry chemicals by 22% for a typical 100 room hotel according to the Travel Foundation. Implementing such a scheme can also reduce water and energy costs by up to RM 26,000. Sourcing local produce is also good practice as it allows local communities to benefit from tourism.

The potential here is endless; local suppliers can provide food, crafts, souvenirs, soft furnishings, handmade soaps, staff uniforms, etc. Doing this will naturally also reduce air freight miles. One study estimated that a single transatlantic return flight emits almost half the CO2 emissions produced by all other sources consumed by an average person yearly.

The introduction of the Global Sustainable Tourism Criteria (GSTC) by the Sustainable Tourism Stewardship Council provides a glimpse into the future of responsible tourism. Though it serves more as a guideline rather than a set of rules, it still offers a starting point for governmental, non-governmental and private sector programmes. It is the beginning of a process to make sustainability the standard practice in all forms of tourism.

For most of us consumers, we try our best to purchase sustainably sourced products. Why not apply this practice to the way we select our holiday destination? The GSTC is often criticised for not having evidence of consumer demand. WE can help by creating that demand.

Whilst tourism is a big economic driver, sustainable tourism is still in its infancy here in Malaysia. And with the industry only looking to grow in the coming future, it is imperative that a concerted effort between the government, private sector and most importantly, the consumers take shape.

Do your part: check out the GSTC guidelines and see how you can contribute to making your holidays more sustainable.

*Click on image to enlarge

Wondering what we’ve been up to?