From Bomb Fisherman to Reef Guardian

In Borneo, a former blast & cyanide fisherman is helping make a million hectare marine park a reality.

Johnny Langenheim

James Morgan

November 06, 2014 |   12:34 | icons/twitts.png   icons/faces.png

Abdul Karim Laing used to be a bomb fisherman. “I started in 1990,” he explains. “My friend was catching a lot of fish – it turned out he was using dynamite and he taught me. I got good at it.”
Laing lives in a tiny village called Berungus in Sabah province, on the north coast of Malaysian Borneo. This is the spectacular but volatile Sulu seascape that separates the southern Philippines from Malaysia.  Western Sabah made headlines last year when an armed group from the Philippines claiming to represent the long defunct Sultanate of Sulu ‘invaded,’ holing up in a village before Malaysian security forces chased them off.  Stateless Bajau Laut sea nomads drift along the porous marine border – as do pirates and Abu Sayaff Islamist separatists, known for their penchant for kidnappings.

But the seas off Sabah are also rich in coral reefs and a wide variety of pelagic and reef fish species. Whales and endangered turtles migrate through these waters and elusive dugongs graze on sea grass beds. Most of the coastal communities here derive their income from fishing of course. And dynamite and cyanide have both proven alarmingly popular amongst small-scale fishers struggling to compete with industrial trawlers and purse seines.

Laing used bombs to catch fish for a decade. The devices were – and still are – common across South East Asia’s Coral Triangle bioregion, because they’re so easy to make. Fishermen first got hold of unexploded ordnance from American and Japanese soldiers during World War II. Dynamite, though rare, is still used today – but homemade bombs can be made from easily obtainable, everyday products. 

According to Laing, all you need is potassium nitrate in the form of fertilizer, gasoline, a beer bottle and phosphorus from matchsticks mixed with the strike-strip to make a rudimentary fuse. They can cost as little as a pound. Lobbed into a shoal, these bottle bombs rupture fishes’ swim bladders, causing them to float to the surface where they are easily collected. But they also decimate coral reefs – a single beer bottle can blast a crater two to three metres in diameter, while the accompanying rubble stifles surrounding corals, preventing recovery. Sometimes they explode prematurely, maiming or even killing fishermen. 
The other favoured method is potassium cyanide. An on board engine pumps air through a common garden hose to divers who squirt milky clouds of the poison into reefs to stun fish. The coral dies – as do many divers, by staying down too long, going up too quickly and getting the bends.

When representatives from Malaysia’s Department of Fisheries and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) visited his village, Laing quickly changed his thinking. “They helped me understand that although bombs and cyanide are quick, they kill the coral reefs,” he says. “And if the reefs are gone, the fish will go too.” According to Laing, the people that use bombs and cyanide claim they’re just trying to survive. “But I use nets and lines and it is enough to feed my family. I don’t think it makes life easier if you use bombs.”

Once he understood just how destructive blast fishing was, Laing became passionate about preventing it. With support from the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), he started patrolling the Berungus Reef. “I have an engine, GPS, binoculars and a petrol allowance,” he says. “And now I’m building a bigger boat for patrolling.” Thanks to his efforts, the reef has been able to recover, escaping the damage visited on other sites. But being a reef custodian has its perils. In 2008, Laing says eight cyanide fishermen threatened to bury him at sea if he didn’t leave them alone. Hostility hasn’t stopped him though – “if I find people damaging our reef, I ask them to leave. If they won’t, I call the police.”

If Malaysia’s Department of Wildlife & National Parks and conservationists get their way, Berungus could soon be a part of the biggest national park in the country, land or sea. The proposed Tun Mustapha Marine Park (TMP) encompasses one million hectares of the Sulu seascape off northern Sabah and it could be up and running by as early as next year. Laing is an example of the collaborative management principal that most conservationists agree is the key to making large-scale marine parks like this work.

“We need local communities to enforce No Take zones,” says Paul Basintal, Director of Sabah Parks. “We aim to train local people in community based conservation, so they can manage the park themselves.” Coupled with responsible fisheries management and marine based tourism including a possible ferry connection from nearby Palawan (there are no major security issues in the area of the proposed park), Basintal reckons the TMP could thrive, instead of being stripped of all its resources.

Today, Laing’s son Kamarudin is working with his father as an Honorary Wildlife Warden. “Every three days or so, he patrols the protected zone,” Laing says with obvious pride. “I’m glad my village is going to prosper in the long term, it’s not going to be threatened. That’s my promise.” 
 
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