Due to Coral Bleaching 12 Malaysian Travel Sites Temporarily Closed To Tourists

Bernama 21 Jul 10;

LANGKAWI, July 21 (Bernama) -- Nine marine park islands and three islands off Langkawi, Terengganu and Pahang are closed to tourists from July 2 to Oct 31 due to coral bleaching.

Marine Parks Department director-general Abdul Jamal Mydin said the coral degradation, which was caused by global warming, was worse than in 1998.

He said in Langkawi, the authorities decided to close Teluk Wangi, Pantai Damai, and Coral Garden in Pulau Payar while in Terengganu - Pulau Redang, Teluk Bakau, Pulau Tenggol, Teluk Air Tawar, Pulau Perhentian Besar and Teluk Dalam.

There other islands are in Pahang, namely Pulau Rengis, Pulau Tumok and Pulau Soyak, he told a news conference after attending a meeting on the quagmire on Wednesday.

Tourism Malaysia director-general Datuk Mirza Mohammad Taiyab was present.

He said the department had set up a committee comprising the Tourism Malaysia, the Public Works Department, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Malaya and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to look into the problem.

Abdul Jamal said more than 500,000 local and foreign tourists visited the marine parks every year.

On Pulau Payar, he said visitors to island would be reduced by 50 per cent to 200 as a controlled measure and to reduce stress on the coral reef.

Only three locations on Pulau Payar are closed to visitors, he said, adding that restriction on other islands had yet to be decided.

-- BERNAMA

Coral bleaching forces closure of islands
New Straits Times 22 Jul 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Numerous islands in marine parks in three states have been closed due to coral bleaching.

The Department of Marine Park Malaysia said the closure will take place until Oct 31.

All recreational activities, including snorkelling and scuba-diving, are prohibited. The affected areas are:

• Kedah: Teluk Wangi, Pantai Damai and Coral Garden; Pulau Payar
• Terengganu: Teluk Bakau, Pulau Tenggol, Teluk Air Tawar at Pulau Redang; Teluk Dalam, Pulau Perhentian Besar, Tanjung Tukas Darat and Tanjung Tukas Laut at Pulau Perhentian
• Pahang: Pulau Chebeh, Batu Malang and the areas around Pulau Tioman. Three other affected islands — Pulau Rengis, Pulau Tumok and Pulau Soyak — are also off-limits.

In a statement, the department said coral bleaching were found to have occurred between 60 and 90 per cent of the corals.

“Coral bleaching happened before worldwide in 1998 and 2006 due to the El Nino phenomena.

“It is a condition where the coral changes colour from greenish brown to pale white.
“The death of a symbiotic algae (zooxanthellae) inside the corals, which gives it nutrients and produces the colour pigments, would cause the corals to become white.

“This time, it is more significant and widespread due to global warming. It happened when the sea water temperature rose by 2ºC to 28-29ºCand remained for four weeks.

“After being continuously exposed to high temperatures, the corals started to die off,” the department said. Director-general Abd Jamal Mydin said the department swung into action after receiving reports of coral bleaching in early May by coming up with a plan to arrest the problem.

It has set up an action committee comprising members of the department, Tourism Ministry, Public Works Department, local universities such as Universiti Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, as well as non-governmental organisations.

The Marine Park Department had conducted checks on the status of coral bleaching in Pulau Tioman, Pulau Redang, Pulau Payar and Pulau Tinggi between June 4 and July 19.

As a result, it decided to close off areas which recorded coral bleaching of between 51 and 100 per cent.

Top dive spots closed due to coral bleaching
Embun Majid, The Star 22 Jul 10;

ALOR SETAR: Several dive sites at two of the top diving destinations in the world — the Pulau Tioman marine park in Pahang and Pulau Redang marine park in Terengganu — are temporarily off-limits to divers and snorkellers until end-October.

They are among three marine parks — the other being Pulau Payar in Kedah — which are affected by coral bleaching, a phenomenon caused by global warming that has increased sea water temperature by 2°C to between 28°C and 29°C.

Marine Park Department director-general Abd Jamal Mydin said the affected dive sites in Terengganu were Teluk Dalam, Tanjung Tukas Darat, Tanjung Tukas Laut, Teluk Air Tawar, Pulau Tenggol and Teluk Bakau; and in Pahang they were Pulau Chebeh and Batu Malang.

In Kedah the affected sites are Teluk Wangi, Pantai Damai and Coral Garden.

Three islands in the vicinity of the Tioman marine park that have been temporarily closed are Pulau Regis, Pulau Soyak and Pulau Tumok in Pahang.

“The closure means that no diving and snorkelling activities will be allowed at the sites.

“In Pulau Payar alone, the damage to coral is estimated at between 60% and 90%,” he told a press conference in Langkawi yesterday.

The department said it would limit the number of visitors to Pulau Payar from 400 to 200 daily during the closure.

Abd Jamal said it was necessary to close marine parks and islands to protect the coral reefs which had turned white.

“We are monitoring the extent of coral bleaching at all marine parks in the country. In the meantime, we are building artificial reefs and coral transplants,” he said.

Each year about 500,000 tourists, including foreigners, visit each of the marine parks.

Reef Check Malaysia general manager Julian Hyde welcomed the temporary closure of the marine parks, saying the corals needed time to recover.

“Corals are like the human body, Although the body can recover from a disease, it still needs time to rest,” he said.

Current climatic conditions have caused water temperatures to rise, thus affecting the corals, making them vulnerable to predators and disease, he said.

“Human activities will also have an impact on the reefs,” he added.

Malaysian Nature Society’s head of conservation Yeap Chin Aik said the department should actively get local universities and experts involved in saving the reefs.

Malaysia closes dive spots to save corals
Rising temperatures causing bleaching; 12 spots off limits until Oct 31 to allow recovery
Straits Times 23 Jul 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has closed several popular dive sites to save its fragile corals, which have already been damaged by high water temperatures this year, an official said yesterday.

Twelve out of 83 spots around the popular islands of Perhentian, Redang and Tioman - all popular dive spots with Singaporeans - in the east and Payar in the west have been off-limits to divers and snorkellers since early this month, said Mr Abdul Jamal Mydin, director-general of the Department of Marine Parks.

He said virtually all the corals in the areas have been damaged - some as much as 90 per cent - by rising sea temperatures.

Most have started to turn white - a condition known as coral bleaching, which causes coral to lose colour and even eventually die.

Officials say divers tend to dredge sand from the seabed, which settles on coral and damages it further. There is also the fear divers will bump into the corals. Some 500,000 tourists visit the areas each year.

The sites are expected to stay closed until Oct 31, giving the corals enough time to recover without the additional disturbances of boats, divers and snorkellers, Mr Abdul Jamal said.

'We expect them to recover or at least improve,' he said, adding that Malaysia risked losing tourists and its rich marine life if its corals - one of its main attractions - died.

However, tourists can still dive at other sites that are less fragile around the islands off Terengganu, Pahang and Kedah, so tourism overall would not take a hit, Mr Abdul Jamal said.

Singapore dive operators contacted agreed. They said that although the affected sites are popular with divers here, there are many alternatives.

In fact, some even welcomed the move to close the sites as they have seen first-hand the effects of coral bleaching.

Mr Ricky Koh, who owns Deep Blue Scuba, said: 'I do not think my customers will be unhappy if I tell them that the site that they want to go to has been closed to allow the corals to recover. Most divers care about the environment.'

Mr Abdul Jamal said water temperatures in the affected areas have risen to 30 deg C to 31 deg C in recent months, up 2 deg C from their normal level.

But with the coming rain, temperatures are expected to drop again, he said.

He said Malaysian corals were previously threatened with bleaching in 1998 and 2006 as part of a worldwide cyclical weather pattern, but no sites were closed because it was not as severe.

Environmentalists have long complained that the authorities should protect the country's corals and marine life more vigorously.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Giving corals a breather
Evangeline Majawat New Straits Times 23 Jul 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: The closure of 17 dive sites in Peninsular Malaysia is necessary to give surviving corals a chance to recover.

Marine Park Department director-general Abd Jamal Mydin said the situation was critical with 50 per cent of the corals in some reefs dead after prolonged coral bleaching.

This is the first time the department is forced to shut down dive sites in nine marine parks after a two-degree Celsius rise in ocean temperature.

"The coral is already sick. We do not want snorkellers to step or touch the corals.

"It'll only increase the stress," he told the New Straits Times yesterday.

Diving and snorkelling are banned from these sites including the famed Pulau Perhentian and Pulau Redang to prevent added stress to the reefs.

The ban, which came into effect early this month until October, was put in place after widespread reports of coral bleaching in May.

Sixty to 90 per cent of the reefs in the 17 sites are bleached.

"Half of the reefs have died. We hope the remaining will recover soon," he said.

Malaysia is not the only one hit. Neighbouring Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines have also reported mass coral bleaching in April this year due to rising temperatures in Southeast Asian waters.

A similiar event was reported during the 1998 El Nino episode.

University Kebangsaan Malaysia Research Centre for Tropical Climate Change System head Professor Dr Fredolin Tangang said the situation worsened with the onset of La Nina.0

Beginning April this year, easterly winds from the cooler waters of the Pacific Ocean have been pushing warmer waters into the Southeast Asian region.

This has caused significantly warmer waters, between 30 and 32 degrees Celsius. The situation is expected to worsen with climate change.

About 70 per cent of corals at diving areas in Phang Nga and Phuket provinces and Similan islands in Thailand are bleached.

"The ocean temperature has been steadily increasing due to anthropogenic climate change since the early 1950s. It is associated with global warming.

"The situation doesn't look good," said Fredolin who is also the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Working Group 1 vice-chair.

He said coral bleaching and ocean acidification were just some of the effects of global warming which would impact the marine ecosystems and their services especially fisheries in the years to come.

Coral bleaching happens when the colourful algae that gives coral its colour and food dies, turning it into a bone white colour.

It is thought that a temperature increase of more than one degree Celsius and excessive sunlight trigger the single-celled algae zooxanthellae to attack the corals.

In defence, the corals expels the algae, making it vulnerable.

Universiti Malaysia Terengganu marine biologist Associate Professor Liew Hock Chark said depending on the period of exposure, the corals will either recover or die.

"Yes (the process is reversible). Not all the algae is exuded during bleaching. Some will survive.

"Hopefully, these will multiply and the corals will recover," he said.

It takes months to years for corals to recover from mass bleaching.

Only some dive sites off-limits
Shaun Ho, The Star 23 Jul 10

PETALING JAYA: Divers and operators can still dive at certain areas around dive sites located in the Pulau Tioman and Pulau Redang marine parks.

“Only some areas have been closed to protect the coral,” said Reef Check Malaysia general manager Julian Hyde.

Hyde said he had received many calls from divers and operators asking whether they would still be able to dive at their favourite dive sites around the islands.

Yesterday, The Star reported that several dive sites in Tioman and Redang were temporarily marked off-limits to divers until the end of October.

Marine Park Department director-general Abd Jamal Mydin said this was done to protect the coral reefs which had turned white, adding that the department would continue to monitor popular dive sites affected by coral bleaching.

Hyde also said the reefs were being closely monitored by the department and the restricted areas could change subject to the health of the coral.

He said Reef Check was working with dive operators on the islands to identify sites that were more likely to withstand bleaching.

“The more resilient sites will serve as a source to replenish the bleached sites,” he said.

He added that Reef Check would propose that the department close those areas to minimise stress to the coral.

Samad Rahim, 58, who frequently dives at Tioman and Redang, said he was initially worried that his regular dive sites would be closed.

“After I checked with some friends, I found it was only certain areas that are off-limits.

“If the dive sites are completely closed, this will cripple the industry and the livelihood of the locals will be affected,” said Samad, who works as a business consultant.