SANDAKAN – Famed for its fresh seafood, Sandakan, may be facing an overfishing problem due to a lack of awareness about sustainable fishing.
Sandakan Fishing (Tongkang) Association chairman Ng Chi Tshung said that the volume of fish catch in Sandakan has dropped by 40% to 50% in the last ten years, from 2013 to 2023.
Worse, the state authorities seem to be ignorant about the issue.
“Overfishing is a real problem in Sandakan. The Sabah government imposed the Sabah Sales Tax on seafood exports to ensure sufficient volume for local consumption, but this is seeing the issue the wrong way.
“If they want to ensure sufficient fish for the locals, they should first ensure that there is sufficient fish in the sea. Limiting our exports is not going to solve the problem,” he told Scoop.
Ng said that the government had not taken any action or introduced any policies on the Sabah east coast to tackle the issue.
He said one of the major problems here is commercial fishing in rivers and coastal areas.
Currently, there are more than 420 fish trawlers in Sandakan; about 50% are small vessels and 50% large vessels.
“Stopping the operation of big trawlers is a step to tackle overfishing, but it is the small trawlers that are contributing to the problem the most.
“A lot of the fish breed in the river before their spawn flows out the sea. But if all the fish were captured at the river and coastal areas when they were small, there would be fewer big fish in the sea.
“Commercial fishing in rivers and coastal areas, including the use of small trawlers in these areas, must be controlled,” he stressed.
Ng also proposed the government to impose a three-month fishing ban, as practised in other countries, to allow time for fish populations to increase.
During this period, called the fish spawning season, the government could provide incentives or allowances to fishermen and fishing companies.
“The government might be scared to offend fishermen, but they will understand. They will only earn more in the future. After the ban is lifted, they can expect more fish than before and it will be lucrative to them,” he said.
In 2019, the then-Warisan state government had mulled a state enactment for the fishing industry to regulate its activities, including banning fishing trawlers.
However, the proposed law never materialised after a change of Sabah government in 2020.
On Sabah’s west coast, the Sabah Fisheries Department has imposed the Tagal system in over 300 rivers, a system that bans fishing for a specific period to allow the renewal of freshwater fish stock.
The Tagal system is a traditional native Kadazan Dusun method, where a stretch of river is declared off-limits for fishing. Its use complements the Sabah Biodiversity Enactment 2000 and Malaysia’s Access to Biological Resources and Benefit Sharing Bill 2017.
However, Scoop was told that the Tagal system is largely unknown among fisherfolk on the east coast because the population of Kadazan Dusun people is significantly lower here. – February 8, 2024