International tie-ups needed to protect Malaysia’s marine habitat — MP
KUALA LUMPUR: The federal government should look towards collaboration with international organizations to formulate a recovery plan for the marine habitats in Malaysia, said Stephen Wong, the DAP member of parliament for Sandakan.
It has been widely reported in the public and private domains that the marine habitats in the South China Sea region has been massively destroyed due to over-exploitation and illegal fishing activities using explosives and toxic materials.
Wong has expressed the hope that the government would take note and look into this issue more seriously as it could hurt Malaysia’s economy due to decreasing fish stocks in Malaysian waters.
He noted that this problem is caused mainly by illegal fishing and methods. Foreign fishermen not only encroach into Malaysian waters and use destructive methods such as drag nets to catch huge amounts of fish stocks from Malaysia, but the locals were also found to use toxic materials or explosives to harvest fish illegally.
In reply to the oral question by Wong during Parliament sitting yesterday, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Nancy Shukri, said that the government had taken various approaches and initiatives to stop illegal fishing and methods that have been found to destroy the marine habitat and environment.
Over the last five years from 2012 to 2016, the Coast Guard of Malaysia, in collaboration with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), had carried out 543 enforcement operations against illegal fishing activities, of which 628 cases had been investigated under Malaysia’s law and compounds of about RM202,000 had been collected.
Nancy warned that if illegal fishing by destructive methods continued to take place, it would forever destroy the entire marine habitat and cause serious damage to coral reefs and the entire marine environment.
Wong, meanwhile. opined that the government should work closely with its counterparts, especially in ASEAN, to find a solution to stop these illegal fishing activities and encroachment.