Off the south-eastern coast of Sabah 15 minutes by speed boat from Pulau Sipadan is a small oval shaped island fringed by sandy beaches and perched on the northwest corner of a larger 200-hectare reef. This reef sits on the edge of the continental shelf. The seabed surrounding the reef slopes out to 25–30m deep. The island called Mabul is an idyllic place with swaying coconut trees and idyllic water villages.
Years ago, Mabul won fame as one of the best muck-diving (a term used to describe limited visibility dives at shallow sites with usually sandy bottoms) sites in the world. It is more correctly recognised now that the reason for the quality of the MUCK Diving is due to overfishing and uses of cyanide and dynamite by the local people of this area.
The island has an amazing array of macrolife and offers photography enthusiasts the chance to capture some of the rarest ecological species on film. Flamboyant cuttlefish, blue-ringed octopus, spike-fin gobies, frogfish and moray eels are just some of the spectacular critters you will encounter beneath the waters of Mabul. Many also enjoy basking by the beach on the soft fine sand.
Two years ago, Mabul was embroiled in a controversy a local company, Bina Ecosaba Sdn Bhd which had proposed to build a brand new resort over an existing low-jey resort on Pulau Mabul. The company wanted to build 214 seaview bungalows and semi-detached villas with side pools and spa villas to be built in stages around the oceanarium.
In November 2008, The Star reported HERE :
WWF Malaysia is against the controversial oceanarium development plan for Mabul, saying the island was already over-developed.
Studies carried out on the island and its surrounding waters revealed that 85% of the island had already been cleared for village housing, schools, budget homestay accommodation as well as five-star resorts.
According to WWF Malaysia Communications Manager, Angela Lim, WWF Malaysia had discovered that waters surrounding the island were also partly polluted due inadequate wastewater treatment and poor solid waste management to handle the land-based sources of pollution from villagers and resorts.
“Tourists have been complaining of over-crowding on the island over the past two years, which indicates a growing loss of wilderness value. The resources of island - the land, coral reefs and coastal waters - are already heavily used,” Lim said.
The reason why I am blogging about this is because a few friends went there for a diving holiday recently and told me about the environmental degradation that is seriously affecting the marine life there.
They were appalled to see so many sea-gypsies, presumably illegal immigrants who had set up homes on stilts in the area which had no proper waste treatment so everything goes into the sea causing more environmental destruction that seriously affects marine life there. Worse still, many were openly selling sea-products such as corals and other beautiful sea-shells. New areas in Mabul are now inhabited and it is obvious to all that human waste is damaging the ocean front.They also heard rumors that certain personalities were on the island purportedly giving the sea gypsies basketball courts and dishing out other goodies. If this is indeed true, I wonder why attention and tax payers' money is being spent to improve living conditions of these illegal immigrants!!!
Apart from all this, it appears that the high level of nitrites has actually killed some species of marine life while other more resilient ones survived.
My friends told me that the breed of divers who visit Mabul are no longer the conservationists who advocate preservation of marine environment. This second wave of divers hail from Korea and Japan and have no qualms about walking on the reef and corals causing untold damage, neither are they advocates of environmental preservation.
In November 2008, The Star reported HERE :
The Sabah Land and Survey Department will only issue a land title for the controversial oceanarium resort in the shallows of Mabul Island if all special conditions are complied with.“If the public is worried, we are also worried,” said the department director Datuk Osman Jamal in stressing that for the first time numerous stringent conditions have been imposed for the Mabul oceanarium project proposed by local company Bina Ecosaba Sdn Bhd.
He said among the conditions imposed for the development of the project were that it should comply with environment regulations and be of low density in the eco-sensitive Mabul which is just nine nautical miles from the diving haven of Sipadan.All relevant departments including environment, marine, fisheries, and drainage and irrigation will scrutinize the development plan before any green light is given for the project to begin, he said on Wednesday.
What the authorities should do is to go to the reef, dive in the area, count and document the marine life in the area and observe the activity over a period of time to study the impact of tourism on the marine environment and marine life. If indeed the studies show that the impact has been negative, it is the moral responsibility of the authorities to take the necessary remedial steps to arrest and to reverse the situation before it worsens.
My friends heard from locals there that several areas have already been bombed by both locals and local gypsies for undisclosed reasons. Most dodgy!
The authorities must mitigate the damage and introduce water desalination plants, waste treatment plants and solar energy panels to reduce the burden of development on the area. They must remember that the consequences of environmental degradation are far reaching and irreversible. The water there is already so polluted and many corals have been destroyed by indiscriminate and uncaring divers who have no love whatsoever for the marine environment.
If an Environmental Impact Assessment was conducted on the area pertaining to the proposed development, should it not be made public for all to see? To date, there is no news. No one knows if the Pulau Mabul Oceanarium project has been approved or not. Everything seems to be done in a fait accompli manner and the price of development is indeed a heavy one because in time, the natural beauty and marine life around Mabul may be lost forever.
It is now more than a year since the statement from the Sabah Land and Survey Department. I trawled the net and cannot find updates to that statement. It seems that is the trend in Malaysia - after someone complains about an issue, the authorities make a statement after which much is swept under the carpet and usually forgotten.
Sabah is so rich in terms of natural resources and we all know the magnitude of problems caused by illegal immigrants over there. I sincerely hope that this beautiful island of Mabul will not be a paradise lost because of indiscriminate development. Sabahans, please speak up!!!
