Protect Coral Reefs in Malaysia

In June and July, we conducted the following conservationa activities:

• We installed a new mooring buoy at one of the dive sites.
• We have been doing weekly maintenance at the 30 coral blocks we recently installed, as the nursery is new it needs a lot of extra monitoring and maintenance to maximise survival rates. 
• We started the annual reef check surveys, covering 6 sites along the east coast of the island.  
• We have also been monitoring coral bleaching weekly since the movement restrictions were removed in June.
• We also did multiple dives to cull COTS (Crown-of-Thorns Starfish) at a couple of sites – killing 716 individuals in total.
• Thrice we were called to respond to ghost nets stuck on reefs in the past two months.

Unfortunately, many locals have started to illegally catch fish within the marine protected area due to the Covid-19 situation and the lockdown, which caused a severe drop in tourism and many of the locals were affected economically. The island is now open to tourism again and we hope the poaching will end. We are working with the Marine Park authorities to stop poachers as well.