By Olivia Miwil - July 16, 2025 @ 7:44pm
KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia must shift its conservation focus from land to sea if it wants to protect the world's marine biodiversity, said marine scientist Abe Woo Sau Pinn from Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Woo, who is with the university's Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (Cemacs), said Malaysia, along with the waters off Sabah and the Philippines, was located within the region that held the highest number of marine species globally.
"If you think the Great Barrier Reef is great, think about what you have in Sabah and around this region.
"We have twice or thrice more species than the Great Barrier Reef.
KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia must shift its conservation focus from land to sea if it wants to protect the world's marine biodiversity, said marine scientist Abe Woo Sau Pinn from Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Woo, who is with the university's Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (Cemacs), said Malaysia, along with the waters off Sabah and the Philippines, was located within the region that held the highest number of marine species globally.
"If you think the Great Barrier Reef is great, think about what you have in Sabah and around this region.
"We have twice or thrice more species than the Great Barrier Reef.
"We are custodians of the world's marine biodiversity. If we fail to do so, we will lose half of the marine biodiversity in the world."
He was speaking at the launch of a research collaboration agreement with the Marine Ecology Research Centre (MERC) off Gaya Island here, yesterday.
While plastic pollution often dominates environmental conversations, Cemacs director Professor Datuk Dr Aileen Tan Shau Hwai called for greater public awareness of a lesser known but equally urgent threat — ocean acidification.
"Ocean acidification research started way before plastic. Why does plastic get the limelight? Because all of us deal with plastic.
"The ocean is facing three serious threats: it's getting hotter, it's getting sourer because the pH is lowering, and it's also becoming breathless."
Many may think that a pH lower by 0.1 or 0.01 per cent shouldn't have so much effect.
"But if you're looking at the life cycle of corals or giant clams, at the larvae stage, the shell is so thin. A slight drop of pH will actually kill the larvae."
To monitor this growing threat, her team, in collaboration with MERC, deployed specially designed plates in Sabah's waters two years ago.
Tan said MERC was one of the few private organisations in Malaysia actively leading long-term marine monitoring, restoration, and biodiversity research efforts crucial to advancing national marine conservation.
"No one can actually produce a symphony of protecting the ocean. It needs the whole orchestra to do it.
"The orchestra is from academia, the scientists, the private sector, the general public, the policymakers."
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