KUALA LUMPUR: The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry plans to increase the number of marine parks in Malaysia to 50 by 2020 from 42 currently.
Its deputy minister Tan Sri Joseph Kurup said the Marine Parks Department was currently working with several state governments to finalise the islands to be gazetted as marine protected areas.
“The Kedah state government has agreed to gazette three more islands while Perak agreed to gazette several islands at Kepulauan Sembilan, and the Sabah government also agreed to provide us another island,” he told reporters after launching the national-level International Day for Biodiversity 2012 celebration.
He said this was one of the steps towards achieving the ‘Aichi Biodiversity Target’ of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted in 2010 whereby every CBD member needs to have at least 10 per cent of marine protected areas by 2020.
Currently, Malaysian marine parks are home to about 1,100 fish species, 550 coral species and 200 species of other marine life.
In conjunction with the celebration, Kurup also launched the ‘Marine Biodiversity Expedition’ aimed at collecting scientific data on the state of Malaysian marine resources, including their chemical and physical environment.
It would provide crucial information on the changes in the country’s marine ecosystem and the effects of climate change on such environment, he said of the expedition which involves a collaboration between the Marine Parks Department, National Oceanography Directorate as well as the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry.
About 10 academicians from Universiti Teknologi Mara, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaya will take part in the mission. — Bernama