00:00Hi, I'm Theresa. We are from Reef Check Malaysia.
00:03We are the winners of the Star Golden Hearts Awards 2024.
00:17As the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child.
00:20It also takes a community to rehabilitate coral reefs.
00:25Reef Check Malaysia, a marine conservation non-governmental organisation,
00:30relies on the local community to preserve Malaysia's beautiful coral reefs
00:35through its community marine conservation groups.
00:39One of our core programme of work is actually Reef Check surveys,
00:43where we do reef health monitoring at more than 300 different sites across the country.
00:48So ecodivers are the volunteers who help us do the reef monitoring surveys.
00:52And in terms of volunteers that we have, we have trained more than 1,000 ecodivers around the country.
00:57We also train more than 100 local islanders to take part in conservation work with us.
01:03Reef Check Malaysia has also scaled the community groups to Mersing, Pulau Redang and Semporna.
01:10To aid local members, NgSed, a reef rehabilitation toolkit,
01:15was launched this year as a step-by-step guide to replant corals.
01:20So our coral rehabilitation methodology involves a lot of local community.
01:24It's more citizen science, so it does not entail you to have a marine biologist degree.
01:29Ideally, our long-term goal is for local community to be the ones who are responsible and empowered
01:35to undertake marine conservation actions, and it won't be just Reef Check Malaysia doing the work.
01:41Reef rehabilitation is to identify damaged coral reef areas
01:45and then regrow corals by transplanting live corals from other areas.
01:51Coral fragments that have been recently damaged either by a storm
01:55or by perhaps an unsuspecting tourist accidentally kicking the corals.
01:59So we try to rescue these coral fragments, we'll attach them to the glass bottles
02:04and every week we will actually go down and do maintenance.
02:09NgSed says it takes a year of maintenance and monitoring
02:12and when the coral fragments have grown larger, they can survive on their own.
02:18Another one of Reef Check Malaysia's main projects are reef surveys.
02:22NgSed says they will monitor over 300 sites every year with the help of more than 1,000 eco-divers.
02:30Yes, we do this annually. At the same sites, we use a GPS to mark the exact same locations.
02:35So the first thing we do is we lay a 100-metre transect tape
02:38and the divers will use this underwater slate to count certain indicator species.
02:42Each trip, depending on where we go, ranges between 10 to 12 dives at each time.
02:46And with all this information, it gives us an overview of how the health of the marine ecosystems are doing around these areas.
02:54The team also removes fishing nets which get stuck on the corals.
02:58NgSed says these nets may not be from Malaysian waters but had drifted from other places.
03:05Once we get the report, we'll work with the local islanders to remove these ghost nets
03:09because what happens is a lot of marine animals, marine creatures get tangled in the ghost nets
03:14and unfortunately they would starve or they'll end up dead.
03:18The other thing is crown-of-thorns starfish removal.
03:21So crown-of-thorns is a coral predator. They'll eat healthy corals.
03:25So if there's an outbreak, let's say there's more than a certain amount of crown-of-thorns starfish in an area
03:31and then we'll start trying to remove them either by physically taking them onshore and burying them
03:37or we inject them with a vinegar concoction which would kill them.
03:42Established in 2007, Reef Check Malaysia started with a goal of monitoring reef health
03:48and have since branched out to community-based conservation programmes
03:52such as advocacy and promoting sustainable marine tourism in the country.
03:58The team has since expanded to 21 starfish offices in Pulau Redang, Pulau Tioman,
04:03the Mersing Group of Islands and in Sabah, Semporna, Kota Kinabalu and Mantanani Islands.
04:11So a lot of people do not realise that coral reefs are actually the habitats for and necessary grounds for fishes.
04:18So it's actually a very important source of our food security in the future.
04:21If there's no more coral reefs, we might get less fish stock
04:25and seafood is an important diet, especially for Malaysia.
04:29And besides that also, coral reefs and the marine ecosystems, they're important for economic livelihood,
04:34especially for coastal communities.
04:36So it's not just about protecting the environment, but it's protecting our livelihoods and food security in the future.
04:42Ng urged the public to participate in caring for the reefs through ways like using reef-safe sunscreen
04:48and eco-friendly products as well as choosing eco-friendly holiday operators.
04:54Some of the major threats to our ecosystem are unsustainable fishing or overfishing in our waters.
05:00We also have impacts from unsustainable tourism,
05:03things like you've seen people maybe snorkelling or diving and stepping on corals.
05:08And also things like fish feeding or turtle feeding, just to get the perfect selfie.
05:13We're just changing their diets and changing how the whole ecosystem interacts.
05:18Happy 10th anniversary to the Star Golden Hearts Awards.
05:21Amazing effort through all these years.
Comments