Number Ones in The Worlds Semporna: Kota Kinabalu: Evidence by a team of 18 Dutch, American and Malaysian marine scientists point to Semporna having the world's highest marine biodiversity - more than in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, the hitherto top spots.
However, they add that much restorative work is needed to address its declining health which faces critical stress and threats.
The Semporna Marine Ecological Expedition (SMEE) 2010 members spent three weeks examining the reefs of Semporna, a priority conservation area and documenting the richness for mushroom corals, reef fish, shrimps, gall crabs, ovulid snails and algae.
"The people of Sabah should be very proud they own such a top marine ecosystem in the world," expedition leader Dr Bert Hoeksema told a press conference at Imperial Hotel, Monday.
Initial coral counts show Semporna leads the pack with the highest coral diversity compared to other study sites in the 5-million sq km Coral Triangle.
"We recorded 43 species of mushroom corals in Semporna compared to 40 in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia - the previous highest recorded richness of this family," noted Dr Bert Hoeksema, Dutch leader of the unprecedented study dubbed Semporna Marine Ecological Expedition.
"Where we find high richness of Mushroom corals, we usually find extremely high richness of other corals as well because Mushroom corals can be used as proxy (representaive) for other coral richness," Dr Hoeksema, Head of the Department of Zoology, NCH Naturalis, The Netherlands, highlighted.
In a roving census of fish counts, the fish team headed by Dr Kent Carpenter, Professor at Department of Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University , USA, encountered 844 species of fish. The reef fish count was 756 species, coral shrimp species 90 plus, algae species 100 plus.
The team also discovered a couple of coral shrimp and gall crab species that were new to science, and a rare mushroom coral species, the lithophyllon ranjithi.
This demonstrates clearly that Semporna is one of the richest areas within the Coral Triangle which covers 5 million sq km of sea across the Philippines, Sabah, Indonesia, Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, Dr Carpenter opined.
"In some of Semporna's more diverse reefs, fish species counts were greater than what they have encountered in Indonesia and rivalled the highest counts that the fish team found in the Philippines," Dr Carpenter pointed out.
However, the poor health of an otherwise extremely high coral reef diversity underscores the need to improve and expand integrated efforts to manage and conserve the Priority Conservation Area designated as such under the Sulu Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion and its larger Coral Triangle initiatives, said the scientists who have done similar expeditions in other parts of the Coral triangle.
That biodiversity is extremely high is all so true but glaring low population abundance on the other hand unmistakably points to over exploitation, noted Muhammad Ali Syed Hussein, a macrobenthos lecturer at UMS.
Using a modified ReefCheck methodology to assess reef health, the Coral Reef Status team led Coral ecologists Affendi Yang Amri, a coral ecologist with of the University of Malaya, laid 12km of transects in the course of 60 dives.
Reef health ranged from poor to excellent, the initial results show.
Five per cent of the transects had "excellent" live coral cover (75-100pc), 23pc had "good" cover (50-75pc), 36pc had "fair" (25-50pc) and another 36pc had "poor" live coral cover (0-25pc).
In short, while a few sites show good coral covers in Semporna, nearly all sites showed significant human impacts caused by fish bombs, discarded fishing gear, solid waste and impacts of climate change such as signs of coral bleaching.
Adding more stress to an already stressed overshoot would only hasten its demise, they said.
In a combined press statement, the scientists cautioned that while Semporna is a world class diving site, it may be one of the Coral Triangle's - and hence - the world's top hotspots fort marine biodiversity.
A hotspot means a reservoir of extremely high biodiversity but is threatened with destruction.
"The 17-day expedition to document the biodiversity and reef status of Semporna-Darvel Bay marks a dream come true for the original marine scientists like Dr Annadel Cabanban, Dr William Gladstone, Dr Andrew Skeat, himself and others, including the daily Express, who pioneered the establishment of a network of marine protected areas that has now become the Sulu Sulawesi Marine Ecoregion," said Prof. Dr Ridzwan Abdul Rahman.
Dr Ridzwan is Director of the Borneo Marine Research Institute, UMS, who chaired the first week-long UNEP workshop in 2000 at UMS.
"Since this is a press conference, it is up to you (journalists) to highlight to the community, the State, the Country and the World what Sabah has to share," he said.
Prof Ridzwan said the scientific feedback, knowledge and information from a study of this magnitude should inspire Sabah to make its resources useful to the people.
While people know Semporna is a world class diving destination, scientific details of its marine biodiversity is new, noted Tengku Zainal Adlin, President of WWF-Malaysia.
Adlin said although Sipadan and the 300ha Tun Sakaran Dandai Park are protected under Sabah Parks, the fact that the area "remains threatened" makes it clear that the rest of the reefs in the area need to be managed for sustainable use, including fishing, tourism and aquaculture.
WWF-Malaysia, UMS, Universiti of Malaya, NCB Naturalis in the Netherlands organised the expedition with participation from the UKM, UNiMAS, Old Dominion University, USA , Sabah Parks, District Office Semporna, Sabah Fisheries Department, Sabah Economic Planning Unit, UPEN Sabah and owners of MV Celebes Explorer, the liveaboard boat.
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