| Submit your comments on this article |
| Southeast Asia |
| Sulu Sea Marine Zone Eyes Military Protection |
| 2004-01-26 |
| EFL If efforts to protect a patch of Sulu Sea off northeast Borneo go as private managers plan, they may need some serious military muscle to guard the site’s underwater assets from human predators. Beware. I hear the drums of the Sulu nation. Mature grouper, giant clams and exotic corals around Lankayan Island would fetch big money in a poor region dogged by piracy, tourist kidnappings and blast and cyanide fishing. I have lived in Virginia, NC and in Kentucky but have never heard of cyanide fishing. "That’s something that we have to discuss with the military, with the authorities and with the enforcement police," says (aren’t they already fundedby the tutu’d guys that wrassle on PPV) Malaysia’s Borneo program director, sees the basin’s existing protected zones as a solid baseline from which to start. "There are some areas also which deserve further protection and a much larger area which demands management rather than protection," he says. "That combination of management and protection is the crucial thing, it’s not just protection." Isn’t thak like an eco-weenie sacrilege? Increased Malaysian security since tourist kidnappings by armed Filipino raiders on two Sabah resorts in 2000 has helped the state’s reefs recover as illegal fishing activity declined. For Lankayan, that means regular patrol boat calls and some three dozen M16-toting soldiers deployed at night on its beaches. So the WOT has helped the enviroment. Well tra-la-la. Let us cavort to the pan pipes Reef Guardian conceived and established the conservation zone encompassing Lankayan, persuading various Sabah ministries to give it operational control subject to their oversight. It charges a management fee of 20 ringgit ($5.30) per tourist per night to cover the expense, which Baker says is key. Hey, no fair. You used capitalism!!! Free the oppressed tortoisi or totoises!! Oh whaterever. And free that Mumia guy too. "It’s got to make a buck and it’s got to provide the funding to maintain the conservation area," he said, adding that private sector players could play a big part in conservation worldwide. Somebody stop this guy and his imflamatory statements!!!! Although all three countries bordering the Sulu-Sulawesi seas run marine protected areas, they have generally struggled for lack of funds, management skill and enforcement. Sabah Tourism Board chief Zainal Adlin, who is also WWF Malaysia chairman and an avid diver himself, says public or private approaches are fine as long as locals benefit. "After all, conservation is for whom, for what? Of course for biodiversity and ecological processes and so on but most important, it must have direct benefit to the community." I’m me.l.l.l.t.t.t.ing. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |
| #5 I thought Sulu's sideline was botany. And twentieth-century firearms! Not too shabby for a guy born in San Francisco. |
| Posted by: Dan (not Darling) 2004-1-26 10:06:27 PM |
| #4 Yar! Methinks I knows they'd be pirates in there somewhere, matey! Yar! |
| Posted by: tu3031 2004-1-26 9:18:42 PM |
| #3 I thought Sulu's sideline was botany. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2004-1-26 3:25:09 PM |
| #2 Fishing with poison is not a terribly new technique. I recall reading articles on how pre-industrial folks in South America do it. Note that I'm not in a hurry to eat any seafood that was killed by cyanide... |
| Posted by: Patrick Phillips 2004-1-26 12:21:22 PM |
| #1 I have lived in Virginia, NC and in Kentucky but have never heard of cyanide fishing. Maybe divers carry cyanide packets down and squirt the contents into the giant clams' intake siphon??? Err, maybe not.... |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2004-1-26 12:15:40 PM |