Coral Bleaching at Sisters' Island Due to Climate Impact

Extensive coral bleaching reported in Singapore's Sisters' Island Marine Park. Dive trails closed temporarily from June 2016 to prevent further undesirable impacts on Singapore coral reefs. Among the corals likely to be affected are those that were rescued from island conversion to make way for Singapore's waste disposal.

By Mallika Naguran

Singapore, 22 August 2016. Leisure scuba divers in Singapore have to head elsewhere to bask in colourful corals as Singapore coral reefs is experiencing massive coral bleaching. A news report by Today stated that coral bleaching is the reason for the closure of the Sisters' Island dive trails. Dive trails are likely to resume for public access in October 2016.

Coral bleaching has intensified in many parts of the world, including Singapore.

Coral bleaching has intensified in many parts of the world, including Singapore.Singapore, like the rest of the world, has become warmer as a result of the El Nino phenomenon that made its presence felt from 2015. NParks provided a conservative estimate of the coral bleaching threshold - a range between 30.95C and 31.35C - where it would be a struggle for corals to survive.  Temperatures of sea surfaces in Southern Singapore have increased beyond the bleaching threshold sometime in May, it reported.

NParks continues to monitor coral health throughout this period. It believes that shutting the dive trails temporarily will minimise human impacts on the stressed corals. 

NParks has also initiated a survey in June 2016 to study the corals closely to investigate if human intervention is needed to save certain coral species. This can be done by moving rare local species, for instance, into deeper waters or more controlled environments.

Coral colonies in the Sisters' Island Marine Park include those that have been relocated from Pulau Semakau in January 2015.  The National Environment Agency reported then that over 700 coral colonies were moved, equivalent to about 60 square metres of live coral cover, from Semakau Landfill’s lagoon to the Sisters’ Islands Marine Park. The relocation of corals had to be done as the authorities made way for a new landfill cell to fulfil Singapore's waste disposal needs up to 2035 or beyond.

In 1998 and 2010, Singapore experienced mass coral bleaching as well attributed to the El Nino effect. Experts have predicted that coral bleaching will intensify over the years and called for greater governmental action on conservation.

Symposium on Proposed Tun Mustapha Park

Kota Kinabalu, 20 March 2013.  A few parks in Sabah are already being managed with local communities living within them and maintaining their lifestyles.

The establishment of Tun Mustapha Park will represent a major shift towards conservation and sustainable resource use. The proposed Tun Mustapha Park, located at Kudat-Banggi Priority Conservation Area (PCA), in the northern region of Sabah was proposed as a multiple-use park by the Sabah state government in 2003.

After 10 years of conservation efforts, a symposium will be held today (March 20) to highlight how this marine protected area will be part of the evolution of resource management around the world.

The proposed Tun Mustapha Park (TMP) encompasses around 50 islands including Banggi, the largest island in Malaysia, and boasts a high diversity of ethnic groups from the coastal communities of Bajau, Ubian, Suluk, Kagayan, Balabak and Bajau Laut to the inland communities of Rungus, Bonggi and Dusun among others. Including the communities on the coastal mainland, there are approximately 80,000 people living in and around the proposed park.

The majority of these people rely in part on the park’s marine resources. There is a need for the park to be gazetted because of the area’s high biodiversity, concentration of coral reefs, mangroves and the richness of fisheries in the region. The proposed park’s objectives are to protect habitats and support livelihoods for artisanal and commercial fishers. Once fully gazetted, it will be the second largest marine protected area in South-East Asia.

The concept for the park is to be a multiple use, managed area which includes areas for strict protection, tourism, artisanal fishing and commercial fishing among others. A multi-stakeholder group made up of government agencies led by Sabah Parks, Sabah Fisheries Department, Universiti Malaysia Sabah and the Lands and Surveys Department, NGOs including WWF-Malaysia and the local communities have been working to realise the gazetting of TMP.

Under the National Coral Triangle Initiative led by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI), TMP is recognised as an important area for the implementation of its objectives for the ecosystem approach to fisheries management (EAFM), adopting protected areas as one of the EAFM implementation tools.

This means that the health of the ecosystem as a key indicator is being integrated into the management of the marine protected area.

This approach includes the development of maps of ecosystem features and values, identifying and developing stakeholder profiles, and conducting consultations with stakeholders to build a shared vision around the proposed management approach.

Source: Borneo Post