KUALA LUMPUR: The Federation of Chinese Associations Malaysia (Huazong) welcomes the government’s tough enforcement to curb rampant fish bombing activities in the country, especially along the coastlines of Sabah, which are not only endangering the lives of divers and tourists, but also caused serious destruction to marine lives.
Huazong president Tan Sri T.C Goh lamented that rampant fish bombing activities had also greatly devastated Sabah tourism industry.
He cited that since 2014 till the end of 2019, a total of 239 fish bombing cases were reported in the country, and of this figure, 234 cases were in Sabah making the state the champion of such devastating incident, some of which had even led to fatalities.
“All these years, Sabah is well-known for its beautiful nature like the islands and the beaches, rich marine resources and abundance of seafood, which not only attracted huge number of tourists from all over the world, but also raked in substantial revenues for the state. Hence, we must not allow fish bombing activities to ruin our precious natural asset,” said Goh in a statement.
Gof who is also president of the Federation of Chinese Associations Sabah (FCAS) said this while supporting and commending the tough actions taken by the relevant government agencies like the Fisheries Department of Malaysia and the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) to combat fish bombing activities, including pleading for severe punishment for the offenders in the court.
It was recently reported that, the enforcement agencies had during an operation conducted in and around the Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park, Pulau Sepanggar, detained a 11-crew fishing trawler which was found to have carried out fish bombing activities. Three of the crew members were later charged in the Magistrate Court here and fined RM600,000 besides sentenced to 12-month imprisonment. The other eight crew members who were found in possession of dynamites were fined RM300,000. Such a swift prosecution and unprecedented severe ruling received overwhelming support and commendation from various non-governmental organizations like the Sabah divers association, Sabah Sharks Protection Association (SSPA), the Marine Research Foundation, etc.
Goh also recalled the sad tragedy caused by fish bombing in Semporna, on 5 July last year, which killed two China tourists and a local dive instructor. The said incident devastated the tourism industry and resulted in many quarters calling for affective measures to curb rampant fish bombing activities in the state. This prompted both the chief minister Datuk Seri Panglima Shafie Mohd Apdal and State Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Datuk Junz Wong to separately assure that the State government is looking into effective methods to curb rampant fish bombing activity in the state.
“Sabah is internationally-renowned as a diving heaven with many world-class diving destinations, besides being endowed with beautiful and rich marine ecology. We must protect such a precious God-given asset at all cost, for our future generations,” he concluded.-pr/BNN
