KOTA KINABALU: The threat posed by ‘ghost nets’ — fishing nets discarded or lost in the sea — to marine life forms was evident recently when a dive and recreation team from Gayana Marine Resort discovered two bamboo sharks battling for their lives in the surrounding waters off Malohom bay here.
The team managed to rescue one shark, but could not save the other.
The resort was conducting a cleanup operation following the discovery of ghost nets in the surrounding waters of Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park (TARP).
“Initially, we had only wanted to look for new dive sites to bring our guests to.
“However, during our recce, we were shocked to find patches of corals covered by ghost nets,” said the resort’s operations manager Alfonso Valirianus.
Alfonso said it was sad to see beautiful and healthy coral reefs being damaged and broken by the weight of the abandoned fish nets.
The team then brought back some of the living coral fragments entangled in the ghost nets to the resort’s Marine Ecology Research Centre (MERC) to be replanted.
At the MERC facility, which was established in 2007, visitors are offered educational tour, participate in conservation programmes such as coral replanting and adoption, as well as sea grass planting activities.
By virtue of being part of the diving community, the resort also supports initiatives to conserve marine life and coral reefs in all protected marine parks.
In July, a group of divers fished out 72kg of ghost nets during an underwater cleanup effort targeted at removing unwanted fishnets from the protected Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park.
In the future, Gayana is also looking into introducing underwater cleanup initiatives to expose resort’s guests more on the effects of unsustainable fishing and uncontrolled usage of single-use plastic items.
“At the resort, we always strive to inform guests that fishing and wildlife hunting are illegal within the protected Sabah Parks,” says MERC ambassador Lizio Mosigil.
“We constantly get queries from new guests whether they can catch their own fish and get them cooked for dinner. But instead of just saying “no”, we take them to our MERC facility and let them see for themselves why we are so passionate about conserving our marine lives.” he added.