Malaysia: Saving turtles with reef balls

Rintos Mail The Star 20 Dec 10;

REEF balls have proven their effectiveness in protecting turtles in Sarawak.

Sarawak Forestry Corporation Kuching regional office project coordinator (conservation and protection) Christopher Kri said in the early 1990s, between 70 and 100 turtle deaths were reported every year.

However, he said the number had reduced significantly since 2006, of which only 15 cases were reported.

“In 2007, only five and in 2008, only 12 turtles were reported dead,” he said when presenting his paper on “Reef Balls for Protecting Turtles in Sarawak” at the 10th Hornbill Workshop organised by Sarawak Foresty Corporation in Miri, which ended last Friday.

He said most of the dead turtles reported were believed to be caught by illegal trawling activities.

He said seeing the need for an alternative method to deter illegal trawling activities permanently, Sarawak had decided to place reef balls in all turtle inter-nesting resting areas.

“To date a total of 2,840 reef balls have been deployed at the selected sites. This has seen a significant drop in turtle death reports per year,” he said.

Kri said the reef balls were deployed at Talang Talang Besar, Talang Talang Kecil, Pulau Satang Besar, Pulau Sempadi and Tanjung Datu National Park.

He said other benefits of reef balls were for protecting traditional fishing areas, creating new habitats for marine life and as a recreational diving site.

He said SFC was looking forward to deploying 100,000 reef balls in all the Totally Protected Areas that are turtle inter-nesting resting areas.