Malaysia: Johor State park requests for special body to monitor illegal oil spill activities

Desiree Tresa Gasper The Star 7 Jul 12;

JOHOR BARU: A special body should be set up to overlook the hundreds of vessels that pass by Tanjung Piai headed to the port in Singapore to ensure that they do not involve themselves in illegal oil transfer or sludge dumping activities.

Johor National Park director Suhairi Hashim said the current enforcement was not sufficient as more than 300 vessels pass by the area on a daily basis.

“We have brought up this matter many times with the relevant agencies during meetings and most of the time, the reply we get is that they do not have enough manpower to ensure that the hundreds of vessels were not conducting illegal activities,” he said.

Suhairi said the problem of oil or sludge washing up and destroying the Tanjung Piai National Park was a long-standing issue and the pollution, if not controlled, will continue to destroy the beautiful mangrove forest.

“We need to put in place a proper team to manage this problem.

“We also need environmentalists or those related to the industry to come up with ideas on how we can clear oil spills and ensure that the mangrove trees survive,” he said.

Suhairi added that previously, even after cleaning up the sludge and oil which washed up into the mangrove forests, many of the trees still died.

“We are in desperate need of help and we call out to anyone with ideas to contact us immediately,” he said, adding that the latest spill, which occurred on June 26, had affected 600m of the 562ha forest.

Meanwhile, fishermen at Kampung Nelayan Pengkalan Tanjung Piai also said they were fed up of always having to deal with the problem of oil and sludge washing up from the sea.

“We know that vessels passing by are conducting illegal oil dumping or oil transferring activities and this is causing major pollution in the area,” said fisherman Jemadin Atan, 50.

He added that fishermen would always help clean up the oil but they were fed up of the same problem recurring in the area.

“There is not point in just cleaning. Something needs to be done to beef up enforcement and solve the problem at the root,” he said, adding that whenever an oil spill occurs, fishermen would suffer as their nets and other fishing equipment would be damaged due to the oil and sludge.