Heavier penalties for fish-bombers

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Junz Wong

KOTA KINABALU: The State Government is planning to introduce heavier penalties to curb fish bombing in the state.

Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Datuk Junz Wong said fish-bombers would be jailed once the law is amended.

Those caught fish bombing and in possession of bombed fish would also lose the fishing licence, he said after a meet-the-people session at Pulau Gaya yesterday.

The authorities have stepped up their crackdown on fish bombing activities after two Chinese tourists and a local divermaster were killed by fish bombs while diving in Semporna on July 5. S

Zhao Zhong and Xu Yingjie, both 26, and diving instructor Ab Zainal Abdu, 30, were diving near Pulau Kalapuan, Semporna, when they were killed.

Police arrested 12 people, including a boatman and a guide, for questioning into the murder case but nobody has been charged yet.

The authorities are pushing to categorise fish bombs as a type of firearm. Those caught in possession of such bombs would face the same punishment as those arrested for unlawful possession of firearms.

Under the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971, those charged with unlawful possession of firearms face up to 14 years in jail and not less than six strokes of the rotan.

At present, Section 26 of the Fisheries Act 1985 deems fish-bombing as an offence punishable under Section 25, providing a fine of up to RM20,000 or a jail term of up to two years, or both, on conviction.

Junz said Sabah is also working on its own fisheries enactment that will increase regulation on fishing activities, including banning fishing trawlers in the future, in a bid to protect its fish resources, coral reefs as well as shark population.

He said that the move was in its future plans, which will give ample time and opportunity for fishermen to adjust to the change.

“In the blueprint we are actually scrutinising now, we haven’t actually come to the policies part, but our plan is to increase the people’s income and we have talked about trawlers.

“We should be banning it, but it is incoming, not now. We are going to ban it in the future so trawler operators have time to adjust, knowing when it will be stopped,” said the Tanjung Aru assemblyman.   He said that trawlers are among the menaces to the shark population, which the state has talked about protecting, and there are no regulations to the catching of sharks, leading to a harvest of juvenile fish.

“In our policy, we will ban destruction of corals altogether in Sabah. It’s very difficult actually for the maritime authorities to monitor our seas, we have foreign boats that can operate, some cannot. So to protect our seas, the way forward is ban trawlers altogether,” he said, adding that it would still have to be decided at the Cabinet level.

The ban on trawlers is part of Sabah’s agriculture blueprint would eventually include enacting its own fisheries law, reducing its reliance on the federal Fisheries Act 1985 and give it jurisdiction over marine life protection and other matters.

Wong said the blueprint is expected to be launched by next month, or at the very least, by the end of the year.

“In the second phase we will be implementing our own fisheries enactment — Sabah doesn’t have our own fisheries enactment and the federal government is the one calling the shots. This will cover a lot of things such as the sizes of fish or lobsters you can catch or the sizes of crabs you can sell. Those with eggs will not be allowed.

“We must have our own laws because we are telling people not to catch this and that but there are no laws to enforce it. So that’s the problem we are facing, same with the shark issue,” Wong said.

He said Sabah is considering banning shark fishing in its waters when it establishes its own enactment.

“The state Cabinet will decide whether the sharks (and rays) should be included in the new enactment so we can ban shark fishing altogether in Sabah.

“There will come a time but now it’s too early it’s not up to us really to say we want to protect or not,” he said.