BLAST fishing occurs daily in the waters of Sabah, endangering both the fishermen and the marine life, said Sabah officials.

Sabah Parks deputy director Dr Maklarin Lakim said his team has detected bombing activities near the Tun Sakaran Marine Park in Semporna.

“At present, our bomb detector installed at the Sipadan jetty can only detect the explosion. It cannot pinpoint its exact location,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

Three divers, two of them Chinese nationals, were killed on July 5 by a fish bomb blast in Semporna.

Although Sabah police said the deaths were an isolated case, WWF-Malaysia said an average 65 cases of blast fishing take place each month in Sabah, based on a four-month study last year.

Sabah officials, meanwhile, believe blast fishing is much more common than the figures suggest. They predict that unless the method of fishing is curbed, it would lead to the destruction of coral reefs and the local fish population.

“Sabah Parks was established in 1964 and as our records go, this fish bombing menace goes back to the 1970s,” said Maklarin.

But he was quick to point that that balst fishing was not as rampant back then.

“The lure of quick money driven by demand for seafood…  this has led us to believe there is a syndicate backing the fish bombers,” he said.

He said these days fish bombers, especially on the Sabah, east coast are equipped with pump boats that could navigate shallow waters.

This has made it tough for the authorities to catch the culprits, who when pursued would steer their boats into the mangrove areas which were perfect hiding spots.

“The question is, where do these fishermen get the money to buy the pump boats? And, where they get the money to buy the materials for the fish bombs, including the detonators?” 

Maklarin, who is also a senior researcher at Sabah Parks, said blast fishing in Sabah had its origins in the Philippines.

But it was the American soldiers who taught the Filipinos how to fish using dynamite, which has since evolved into fertiliser bombs.

“The know-how subsequently spread to the southern Philippines and later to Sabah and then Indonesia.

Sulu and Sulawesi seas are also suffering the effects of blast fishing, said Maklarin, adding that data on this was however lacking.

He said many of the ingredients used to construct the bombs are readily available in the local farmers’ market.

The homemade bombs use glass bottles filled with layers of powdered potassium nitrate or ammonium nitrate mixed with kerosene.

Sabah Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency director Kamaruszaman Abu Hassan believed the detonators are purchased in the Philippines where massive quarrying work was taking place.

“These items are not easily available in Sabah. But we were informed that these fishermen are able to get the detonators for about RM2 apiece,” he said.

In 2018 and 2019, Sabah MMEA took 14 people to court for blast fishing.

“There were 11 cases in 2018 and three cases this year,” said Kamaruszaman. 

He said children were learning to fish with bombs, pointing to a March incident when a 16-year-old sea gypsy was killed when a fish bomb exploded in his hands.

Kamaruzzaman said the fuse which is wrapped in aluminium foil gave the fishermen a few seconds to launch the bomb before it explodes.

But a poorly made bomb could blow up as soon as it is lit, which is why many of the bombers ended up blind, deaf or missing their limbs.

The enforcement officer also believes syndicates are employing the method of fishing, and that they are smuggling detonators into the state. – July 14, 2019.