Heavy toll from illegal fishing in Sabah…
Yesterday I was forwarded a newsletter from a friend in Sabah, Malaysia. A small marine protected area called the Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area (SIMCA), north of Sandakan on the NE coast, is being targeted by Vietnamese-crewed, Malaysian registered boats. The results are pretty horrendous… Images are copyright SIMCA/Reef-Guardian Sdn. Bhd – please take a look at the Reef-Guardian site for more information.
Dear friend of SIMCA,
I would like to share with you an incident that happened here 6 days ago. There was a fishing boat that encroached SIMCA area at night on the 14th, deployed 7 kilometers bottom gill net not very far from Lankayan dive sites, at the north of Lankayan. Our enforcement team with the help from the Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency making arrest to the boat. The fishing boat was manned by 9 Vietnamese. It was a Sabah registered fishing boat under registration number SBF-19. They hold permission from Department of Fisheries to use Vietnamese workers. But they don’t have permit to fish at the east coast. The fishing boat was detained and arrested by MMEA. Unfortunately the fishing net only recovered the day after. Reef Guardian and resort staff have been pulling the heavy fish net manually. It took us 3 days just to pulled 4.5 kilometers of net from underwater. Sad things was many sharks and turtles get killed. There were a few that being rescued and released as well. We have been struggling with the net pulling mission. The fishing boat was released and the owner just being fine RM500 for no permitting to be at the east coast. I called MMEA, making complaint and inform about the fishing boat net causing turtles dead and hope they can put on more charges. However because of the evidences was incomplete, no fish net on the boat during arrest and they were released.
For the past one month, we have been encountered the similar boats for at least 4 times. It is not just one boat, but it could be up to 7 boats that operate the same fishing method. All the boats are operate by Vietnamese, they have permits and they don’t speak English. They can just pretend they don’t understand us when we asked them to leave. I never see the bottom gill net that that long. The fish net is capable of killing almost everything – sea turtle, shark, sting ray and etc. Many leopard sharks skin were dried on the fishing boat.
I attached you some pictures from this incident and an article that we send to press and being published in local newspapers this morning.
Regards,
achier
The battle to conserve our natural world is fought on many different fronts. From the huge swathes of equatorial rainforest in Africa, to tiny protected areas such as SIMCA, people are doing what they can to stop the rampant exploitation of species and habitats. And sometimes it is the small places, the SIMCAs of this world, that are most easily forgotten…
