1. Sipadan – Divers Paradise in Peril
Lovingly documented in Jacques Cousteau’s Borneo: Ghost
of the Sea Turtle, Sipadan in Sabah, Malaysia, brings to
mind images of an untouched tropical marine paradise so
pristine, it’s practically a cliché. Regarded as the tourism
jewel of Eastern Malaysia and consistently ranked by
National Geographic as one of the world’s top 10 diving
sites, Sipadan draws divers and seafaring adventurers from
all over the world to explore its treasures.
Unfortunately, its international fame nearly became its
downfall. Sipadan has had an embattled history as the
epicentre of a lengthy sovereignty battle between Malaysia,
Indonesia and the Philippines. Its famed fragile eco-system
was compromised by unmonitored tourism development
until the International Court in Hague ruled in favour of
Malaysia in 2002, after which the Malaysian Government
stepped up conservation legislation by removing all man-
made structures from Sipadan and restricting the number
of divers’ permits to the island. Nonetheless, up to today,
the fragile eco-systems of Sipadan constantly hang in the
balance in the constant struggle between environmental
conservation and economic gain, a phenomenon that
repeats itself even on our shores – the choking haze that
engulfed Singapore in 2013 from burning forests in Sumatra
versus palm oil, the “green gold” of our times, and most
recently, the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef from
silt versus the building of Abbot Point coal terminal in
Queensland, Australia, that promises thousands of jobs in a
sluggish economy.
Therefore, it was with gusto that I took up an invitation by
the “Luminox Save The Seas” programme to explore the
undersea world of Sipadan with world renowned Mexico-
based ocean conservationist, Scott Cassell, in June 2012,
to capture for posterity the natural beauty of its famed
marine diversity in constant danger of exploitation by the
tourism trade or (heaven forbid) the palm oil “green gold
rush”. We stayed at SMART Resort at the nearby Mabul
island, which was truly rustic in all senses of the world.
Internet access was completely non-existent, which meant
I would be majorly deluded with e-mails by the end of the
holiday. But for once, no one checked their iPhones mid-
conversation.
A massive green turtle resting on a rock. These
gentle giants are reportedly so accustomed to
divers, that some even allow divers to rub
their shells.
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2. Nobody who dives in Sipadan comes away without feeling
minuscule at the awe of nature. Jump off the boat and
chances are that your first sweeping glance would be at
deep blue lands “heaving” about a gentle giant green turtle,
gravely endangered globally, but uniquely plentiful in a place
called “turtle tomb”, the famous cavern of limestone tunnels
off Sipadan where turtle skeletons can be seen. Though
visibility was unusually murky during our dives, the waters
around us teemed with life – swirling schools of barracuda,
gobies, scorpion fish, jacks and unicorn fish encircled us.
Look down no further than a few metres and you would
see humphead parrotfish picking at colourful splashes of
corals. I took my underwater shots with a Canon G9 in a
dinky underwater casing but it was challenging with poor
lighting, slow lens, lack of strobes amid the fast swimming
swirls of fishes. So I swam along with them to compensate
for the movement.
However, amidst this tropical paradise, something was
amiss. The documentaries had promised us a shark
haven. But we only saw one lonesome blacktip reef shark
on a hunt, where there should be a school of hundreds.
Our guest conservationist, Scott Cassell, was worried. We
prowled through the waters looking for a glimpse of a single
hammerhead shark which was supposed to be a guaranteed
sighting in all our six dives. At the end of the dives, just that
one blacktip shark remained on our dive log.
While Sipadan is protected as a marine sanctuary,
ultimately its ocean eco-system is inter-connected. Sharks
are the “health check” of the ocean. As apex predators,
they regulate fish population and clean out sick individuals
that help to prevent the spread of disease. Already the
parrotfish population on Sipadan is exploding – and a
single parrotfish eats more than five tonnes of coral a year.
Although legislation in Sipadan, and soon the rest of Sabah
with Sipadan bound for UNESCO Heritage status, bans
the hunting and finning of sharks, the migratory nature of
sharks makes them susceptible to other shark killing fields
elsewhere in the South China Sea and as far as the Sea
of Japan. International seas are largely un-policed and the
enforcement of shark finning legislation is sorely lacking
worldwide, with more than 100 countries involved in the
trade of sharks’ fins. Most countries act as exporters, with
the main consumer nations being mainland China, Hong
Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.
According to the Global Shark Conservation Initiative, the
only thing in the world more lucrative than the shark’s fin
trade, which kills 73 million sharks a year, is the illegal drugs
trade. Again we see the classic struggle played out between
conservation and the huge economic juggernaut that is the
shark’s fin trade.
The world is so beautiful. There is just so little time to
capture things of beauty around us. If only we could stop
the killing … and stop our own appetite for shark’s fin soup.
► Magdalene Tan
Supreme Court of Singapore
A huge barracuda swims nonchalantly above a fishnet.
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4. A sea slug lugs along the sandy bottom.
Deadly but captivating – the lionfish is known for its long venomous spikes.
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5. Captured against the indigo colour of a coral, this translucent mantis
shrimp was a sight to behold.
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6. In the shadow of the underbellies of an encircling shoal of barracuda.
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