MARINE THREAT: An abandoned fishing net lies draped over a section of the Hiyoshi Maru, endangering marine life.
IMMINENT DEATH: An abandoned fishing net slowly choking the life out of a colony of coral.
HELPING HAND: A diver clearing away marine debris during an earlier dive near one of the Japanese WWII shipwrecks. — Photos by Ernest Teo/Premier Marine & Scuba Centre
KUCHING: This Sept 16 marks the 50th anniversary of the formation of Malaysia. While citizens will be waving flags and singing patriotic tunes on dry land, more than a dozen environmentally conscious Malaysian scuba divers will be braving the South China Sea to take part in the Malaysia Day Dive 2013 (MDD).
MDD is a diving community-led effort to clean-up marine debris threatening the Hiyoshi Maru, a WWII Japanese shipwreck about 30km off the coast of Santubong, Kuching.
The wreck is a popular diving site for its natural beauty and the abundance of marine life found there, including corals, lobsters, jackfish, and giant groupers.
The main aims of the dive are to create greater public awareness and policy makers about the worldwide problem of ocean debris and its devastation on marine life, as well as to promote the dive site as a tourism destination, event organiser Ernest Teo told thesundaypost when met recently.
Under threat
Every year, tonnes of rubbish end up in the oceans, creating marine debris which kills thousands of marine animals and sea birds, endangering hundreds of miles of sensitive marine and coastal areas, as well as decimating ecosystems.
Teo, who is a professional scuba instructor, described the condition of the Hiyoshi Maru as “quite bad”.
He estimates that about 20 to 30 per cent of the ship is currently shrouded in a lethal web of abandoned fishing nets which is suffocating coral growth as well as ensnaring passing marine life.
The nets can be traced to fishing trawlers which spread their nets at surface to mid-level depths. If they fish close to the wreck which lies in relatively shallow depths, sooner or later, the nets will get caught.
Abandoned nets are just one form of marine debris threatening the site. Others include plastic wrappers and bottles, tin cans and just about any rubbish imaginable that you can find on land.
“The past generation did not take care of our ecosystem well enough. What we see today is from the previous generation.
“We always have to bear in mind that the world we are living in today is borrowed from the future. If we don’t do anything right now, there won’t be anything left,” said Teo, who also organises trips to the wreck site for small groups of divers and visitors.
He pointed out that while divers to the site normally try to collect debris during each trip, a higher number of divers was needed to make a more significant dent in the amount of debris trapped at the site, hence the need to organise MDD.
Living museum
The clean-up also aims to highlight and protect the historical significance of the wreck site.
According to Ernest, the Hiyoshi Maru was a WWII troop carrier, part of a massive effort by the Japanese troops to invade South-east Asia, including the island of Borneo, just days after the audacious attack on Pearl Harbour.
On Christmas eve of 1941, the ship was on its way to Kuching together with a number of other vessels when it was intercepted by Dutch forces just off the coast of Santubong.
The Dutch attacked the invading fleet with devastating results. The 130m length and 30m wide Hiyoshi Maru and another ship the Katori Maru suffered significant damage when torpedoed by Dutch submarine K XIV.
It is believed that many troops on board both ships escaped in time as the ships sank slowly to the bottom of the South China Sea.
Another ship, a Japanese destroyer called the Sagiri was not so lucky. Half its crew – 121 in all – met a watery grave while 120 others were rescued.
Now, more than 60 years on, the wrecks of all three ships have been transformed over time by the forces of nature into living reefs, home to a rich diversity of marine life that draw avid scuba divers, tourists and wartime history buffs from near and far.
Noble aim
The MDD organizers have set a goal of clearing at least 100kg of nets from the Hiyoshi Maru wreck, as well as collect as much other debris as they can – for analysis later.
For more photos and information on MDD, visit http://www.wetwolfdive.com or Premier Marine & Scuba Centre’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/divekuching.