Protect Coral Reefs in Malaysia

Anchors from boats can cause considerable damage to coral reefs, including breakage, fragmentation and direct injury to the reef ecosystem. Additionally, anchors and chains can break or dislodge corals, sponges and sea fans, resulting in immediate and long-term damage to large areas of the coral reef. Some coral species only 1cm per year, therefore it can take many years for some coral to recover from an anchoring incident. Anchoring also causes immediate and extensive damage on reef-associated habitats such as seagrass beds, which are important nursery and juvenile habitats for many species. A mooring buoy floats in water to which boats can be moored. Mooring buoys are therefore essential to marine tourism as they discourage boats from dropping their anchors.

The Tioman Marine Conservation Group from Tioman Island inspects existing mooring buoys regularly and installs new mooring buoys and fixes broken mooring buoys when needed. Over the last 13 months, the team together with Reef Check Malaysia had installed and fixed a total of 13 mooring buoys.

Further down south from Tioman Island, Reef Check Malaysia aided in the installation of mooring buoys at Harimau and Hujung islands with the help of Besar Island’s community. It is hoped that these mooring buoys will help to reduce the impacts of anchoring on the reefs.