Protect Coral Reefs in Malaysia

Reef Check Malaysia conducted a Natural Resource Management Workshop in Pahang, in collaboration with WWF-Malaysia and Pahang State Parks Corporation. The workshop brought together various stakeholders and representatives from both the state and fedearl governments in Pahang. During the workshop, the participants explored how participatory, integrated and sustainable management of the islands in Pahang can be achieved. The conversations were rich and insightful, touching on issues such as managing marine resources  to identifying land-sea challenges and solutions. 

RCM is grateful for the active and thoughtful participation from all participants, who brought forward key issues and helped shaped potential ways forward. We hope that the ideas brought forward will help towards plannign for a more sustainable future for Pahang's marine and island ecosystems. 

In the future, we hope to see more states joining this effort and continuing this important dialogue and discussions on sustainable marine and island management in Malaysia. 

This project is supported by Oceans 5 and its Bloomberg Ocean Fund and its Joint 30x30 Funding Initiative, sponsored projects of the Rockfeller Philantrophy Advisors. 

Reef Check Malaysia and 15 trained divers from our Community Marine Conservation Groups (#CMCGs) — including Selakan Marine Conservation Group, Larapan Marine Conservation Group, Kulapuan Marine Conservation Group, and Pemimpin IKLIM Mabul — carried out 5 dives to remove the Crown-of-Thorns starfish (COTs). The COTs are a natural predator found on coral reefs and if left unchecked, COTs can destroy entire coral ecosystems. They can grow into huge populations, causing a serious outbreak.

The 2-day emergency reef response was conducted at Bakkungan Island’s reefs in Semporna, during which 869 COTs were removed from the area!

A couple of weeks later, our Selakan Marine Conservation Group, Pemimpin IKLIM Mabul, Larapan Marine Conservation Group, Kulapuan Marine Conservation Group joined forces once again to remove these predators from Darvel Bay. During this clean-up effort, our teams collected and removed a whopping 981 Crown-of-Thorns starfish and also 3 ghost nets weighing a total of 200kg!

Our Programme Manager in Semporna, Adzmin Chiee, shared “In the past, it would take weeks or even months to assemble a response team. Now, with trained communities ready to act, we can respond promptly to marine conservation issues. This is why empowering local communities is key to managing our marine resources.”

Our CMCGs are supported by the Sabah State Tourism, Culture and Environment Department (Kementerian Pelancongan, Kebudayaan, & Alam Sekitar Sabah (KePKAS)).