Kadayan Journal

Pix, www.comedy-zone.net

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Foreign vessels fishing in Sabah waters

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Surely something is fishy. There again wayang is about to start between State and Federal Authorities. Who are lossing? People. 

Now foreigners are given licences to fish in our waters when we are struggling even to catch ikan basung –they, the authorities must be out of their mind!

To read more, below is an excerpt from my column written in June 11, 2006 -Daily Express-about fish in Sabah. 

We talk too much as well as we eat too much, without even thinking how long can we eat what we eat today. Two things are certain- first; seafood that we eat proudly today is getting scarcer every minute. Second, it is getting dearer in price. Have we prepared for the future continuation eating what we eat today? All surely realised, we have been ruining the breeding habitats of our sources of food. Have we managed them? We take for granted it would last forever, and ever, we only care for ourselves. That’s selfish. 

Main protein

How many of us are aware how much protein we ought to have in our diet to keep us going everyday.

It depends on how old you are.

Many may still think that in Sabah there is nothing to be unduly worried about. There is enough supply of protein until we are all gone. Is it really?

Protein is on of the main classes of food essential for our body. The other is carbohydrates and fats.

Insufficient protein in the diet many cause lack of energy, stunned growth and lowered resistance to disease. Severe lack of protein cause liver damage. Kids need extra, as do pregnant women and nursing mothers.

I am not selling you a food supplement. However, I am going to talk about attitude towards protein.

We know that lack of protein will hamper mental growth. Our intelligence will be affected. To put it crudely, be quite stupid. It does not augur well if our intention to be a developed nation by 2020 will be one with most of its citizens having undeveloped minds. 

Americans have commissioned a study, which concluded that children who have a good breakfast at home before going to school are much better at mathematics than those who forgo breakfast. I assume that American breakfast are wholesome, balance and contain the required amount of protein.

Planning?

Sabah does not have a planned industry that deal with protein for the State nor have I read any serious or specific activity for the nation apart from what we already knew.

As far as Sabah is concerned, the South China Sea is seen as always able to provide us abundance of fish of all kinds infinitely. Neither do we have a meat industry to fall back on.

Sabah is also known as Malaysia’s seafood haven. That is why we don’t think of hell.

The Chief Minister recently mentioned, the Sabah future’s prosperity lay in seafood and aquaculture. Advance technology and science would open up more opportunity in this field. Honestly, I don’t see anything moving towards this. Again we are good at talking.

Fishing has been something most of us take for granted. We go to the market and expect of fish to be available at the various prices. We give no due regard as to who caught them, where and how.

There was time when my mother had to loiter for hours waiting for the fishing boats to come back at the Sipitang fish market. When they did, there was a mad rush to fight for the fish.

Then, there was a lack of fisherman but plenty of fish in the sea. Now there is probably an oversupply of fishermen fighting for little fish. In addition, the methods have changed over the years one that was sustainable to ones that are destructive.

Blunders

Kan Yaw Chong wrote in the Daily Express the existence of a new method of killing fish and coral altogether several years ago. I found it’s amazing. This involved a multiplayer explosive from a coke bottle could. The effects must be disastrous for our long-term protein supply.

The demand for fish has spiralled geometrically over the past 20 years. The fish population can no longer regenerate themselves to satisfy our never-ending needs.

Unlike in the EU where any fish caught less than a certain size has to be returned immediately to sea, we are thousand of light years for such environ-friendly legislation.

Consumption

How much fish does the average Sabahan eat a day? Multiply that by the number of Sabahans, and then we get some idea. Let us say there are 3.5 million people living here and each consumes 100 grammes of fish a day. That would be a staggering 350,000kg or 350 tonnes per day.

In one year, alone we need 127,750 tonnes! In the next 10 years, we have to find 1.28 million tonnes of fish without even taking into consideration a minimum 2.5 per cent nett increase in the population.

The question is would there be 1.28 million tonnes of fish to be caught out there. In addition, how many people would be needed to catch them? How are they going to catch them? Would there be fish for our future generation, 50 years from now.

A long time ago, most fish available to us were those migratory in nature such as ikan tengiri, mangkok-mangkok, rumahan, gerong-gong, tamanong, to name a few. They were quite easy to catch and fishermen could go out for a day and come back with enough to feed their families and surpluses to sell.

They knew that the next day, weather permitting, there would be more out there. But times have changed for then and everyone else.

About 20 years ago, fishing boats from Hong Kong came nearby and started buying live hoi lee at RM300 per kilogram. Then seafood restaurants started sprouting up everywhere offering all kinds of exotic reef fish, which can only be caught with explosive and poison.

The demand for these types of fish has gone unabated. It is no longer sufficient to just serve ikan kerapu black or white pomfret anymore. People have money and they are willing to pay. The more exotic and fresh, the better.

When was the last time anyone walked into a seafood restaurant and ordered some fried ikan rumahan?

Destructions by bombings

University Kebangsaan Malaysia conducted a study about the state of our reefs in the early 1990s and concluded that fish bombing had destroyed 90 percent of our reefs. This was a scary and sad finding.

If fish bomb has stopped, it is unlikely due to our often lackadaisical enforcement but because there are no more reefs to bombs! Hence, Kan Yaw Chong’s article about the multi-layer explosive technique. In order to satisfy consumer demands, people have improvised new destructive means to eventually destroy themselves.

Most people would blame the Filipino illegal immigrants for the never-ending problem of fish bombing. Line up all Sabahans and ask each one of then whether our reefs ought to be destroyed this way, I can almost guarantee that the answer would be an overwhelming no.

Then are we suggesting that these fish-bombers are a bunch of mad and sadistic idiots who have nothing better to do but bomb fish and throw then back into the sea?

What happened to the fish they caught with explosive and poison? The consumers have been buying and eating them. That is what has been happening.

Therefore, we cannot blame just the bombers.

There were some arrests highlighted in the Press. Since then, this has gone quiet. Obviously, whoever is in charge must be finding this an uphill battle.

Crooks around

I wish to divert here and mention an interesting story this relative told me over dinner. When the new Hong Kong airport first opened, the baggage–handling system went haywire for weeks causing billion of losses to exporter and importers.

One of the victims was a fish exporter based at Kg Melinsung, Papar. He could not send live fish to Hong Kong for weeks. This led him to sell his live fish locally at a fraction of the cost he would be getting otherwise.

This relative went there with his family and was shocked to discover the types of fish that were available for export but never seen in our local market. We were exporting one of our best resources, which fetch thousand of HK dollars but only a few hundred ringgits to our, exporter and denying ourselves!

This leads me to ask how much fish has been exported out of the State and how much is still being exported. We have no facts on this. And how much export duties have been collected, if at all? However, the most important question is, is it wise to sell our fish overseas when we need it ourselves? Who benefits from this? We need fish for our protein supply. There is no two ways about it. Much like, we need water to hydrate our bodies.

In fact, to allow the now depleted peninsula seafood outlet access to fish caught in Sabah should also be banned if we wish to strengthen our tourism industry. This will make peninsula people also come here to enjoy the best seafood while at the same time keep seafood prices for Sabahans at a manageable level.

Sabah seafood heaven

Sabah is famous for its seafood. Talk to people in KL and they often mention this. When Sabahans talk about seafood amongst themselves, they say Kota Kinabalu,Tawau, and Semporna alike have great seafood eatries.

Everyone, it seems, love seafood. We are in the fact creating an illusion and a great myth. Our seafood is fast disappearing and we have yet to come up with the ways and means to replenish our supply. The State Cabinet should think seriously about this. We must zealously guard is priceless.

Our former Prime Minister declared several years ago, that the country imported RM8 billion worth of food annually and those we should try to reduce this by producing our own. But did we?

These are resources we should take of and not allow to dwindle to nothing. We have no blue print for our fishing industry but at the same time, everyone seems to lament that fish prices are forever going up and supplies are getting limited.

The friend who sells us fish head curries and in whose restaurant we meet regularly has more or less accepted the fact that his business will one day stop, because he will no longer get a steady supply of fish heads.

All are being shipped to peninsular so that peninsula businesses can thrive at the expense of our own. How silly of us!

Regulations are not in place to ensure long-term supplies and the absence of such regulations and the inability of fishermen to discipline them can only mean the chaos reign.

In Australia, just like the EU, people automatically throw back fish caught with lines that less than 4 inches long. Alternatively, in New Zealand where people who gather cockles at beaches limit themselves to only 50 pieces per person because the regulations say so?

That would be asking for too much from our people. However, what are our options? Does any one in authority know the answer?

The original article was written together with Haji Ramlee Dua.