Sabah to name 500 islands in its waters

Muguntan Vanar, The Star 28 Sep 09;

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah will undertake a comprehensive programme to give names to some 500 islands, some of them inhabitated, within its territorial waters.

Chief Minister Datuk Musa Aman said the programme will be undertaken by the Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry together with other relevant government departments to ensure that all the islands were a given a name and gazetted.

“We believe that there are about 400 to 500 islands without an official name,” he said after opening the 4th Tourism Promotion Organisation for the Asia-Pacific Cities (TPO) general assembly here on Monday.

Musa said this when asked about fears raised by a University Malaysia Sabah (UMS) study that showed that many islands in Sabah were not named, which could lead to future territorial disputes with neighbouring countries.

UMS International Law Studies lecturer Dr Marja Azlima said the Government needed to be proactive in naming the islands whether big or small so as to avoid overlapping claims like that of Ambalat between Malaysia and Indoensia, and Batu Putih between Malaysia and Singapore.

She cautioned that unnamed islands would be focal points for overlapping claims between neighbours and should be addressed now to overcome future issues.

Musa said that the naming or renaming of islands within Malaysian territory would be tabled to Cabinet for approval before they are gazetted.

500 islands off Sabah to be named
The New Straits Times 1 Oct 09;

KOTA KINABALU: An estimated 500 unknown islands off Sabah will soon be named.

A working committee under the purview of the State Secretary and the Land and Survey Department had been tasked with identifying the islands and coming up with suitable names.

"Cooperation from the Topography Department and the Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia had also been sought to identify the exact locations of the islands," said Land and Survey Department director Datuk Osman Jamal.

Once the exact locations of the islands have been determined, a report that would include the proposed names for the islands would be submitted to the Chief Minister and the Cabinet for approval.

"There is a lot of work to be done and our focus is on the physically seen islands," he said.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman had on Monday said that steps would be taken by the government to identify and to name the many islands off Sabah to prevent other countries from laying claim over them.

Musa was reacting to a finding by the Universiti Malaysia Sabah that many of the islands off Sabah have yet to be named.

Osman said the local authorities may submit names for consideration by the working committee to be submitted to the cabinet for final approval.