Sabah to set up shark sanctuary

Kota Kinabalu: Sabah will manage its own shark protection programme — just like how it has handled other protected and endangered animals in the state."We will proceed with our next option, which is to introduce a shark sanctuary.

"This, in my opinion, does not require the permission or concurrence of the federal government," Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said.

He was responding to Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek's statement earlier on the refusal to impose a ban on shark hunting and finning in Malaysian waters.

Masidi noted that shark protection was as important as conserving Sabah's wildlife.

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"The fact that sharks are mobile is never an issue. We create fully protected forest reserves as wildlife sanctuaries although we know orangutans and pygmy elephants are mobile.

"The revenue from the diving industry in Sabah was more than RM350 million last year. Seeing sharks in the wild was one of the biggest attractions to dive in Sabah."

Masidi believed that Ahmad Shabery did not really understand why Sabah wanted to ban shark finning and hunting.

Ahmad Shabery had said banning it would have minimum economic implications as it is not an industry in itself.

"In fact, I doubt shark fins contribute 10pc of that to the state economy," Masidi said, referring to Shabery's comments that there is no shark hunting industry here.

Masidi accepted and respected the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry's decision not to amend the Fisheries Act, which would have declared sharks as "totally protected", thus prohibiting hunting and finning.

But he was worried of the economic implications once the last shark was caught for its fin.

Back in 2012, Masidi had proposed an amendment to the Fisheries Act that would give force to such a ban, especially since local environmental groups estimated that the shark population in Sabah had declined by 80pc over the past three decades.

At least 63 species of sharks are found in Malaysian waters. This places the country in the fourth position in the Southeast Asia region after Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

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In Malaysia, sharks are arguably not specifically targeted by fishers but are caught together with other commercially important species, mainly by trawlers, gillnets, and hook and lines.

Sharks are fully utilised in Malaysia and the meat is widely eaten and part of the processing activities in many areas of the country.

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