Climate Witness: Chris Kong, Malaysia

Posté le 27 mars 2009

Over the past several years, the monsoon season has been unpredictable and more severe, causing flooding and coastal erosion. Christopher Kong's crab company has suffered, with the annual blue crab harvest being decimated in recent years.

My name is Christopher Kong. I am 56 years old and I live in Kudat town, Sabah – a state in Malaysia. I was born on Labuan Island and have lived in Kudat since the year 2000. As owner of a crab company, I have boats that harvest blue swimmer crabs during the south-west monsoon season.

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When the monsoon blows from mid August to November, the strong winds and currents bring the blue swimmer crabs from the South China Sea to Kudat. It is only during this period that adult-sized crabs are present in our waters. As my business relies solely on these crabs, and they arrive only with the monsoon, I have become very observant of the seasons.

Changes in the seasons

The dry season has become extremely dry leading to drought that is causing water shortages for the Kudat community. I have also noticed that we use the air-conditioning more as a result of the hotter days.

Now when the winds and rains do come during the monsoon, the rainfall is a lot stronger and more intense. The most recent monsoon brought heavy rainfalls from November to December 2008, and caused flooding in Kudat. This coincided with the floods in Miri, a city in the neighbouring state of Sarawak, in which a number of people were killed.

About four years ago I started noticing changes in the length of time that the monsoon blew. I have observed that it arrives later and for a shorter season. It used to be that December is the low season for fishing. Now the low season is mid January to February. Before and during 2005, the monsoon was regular from mid August to November. The blue crab harvest was plentiful at 200-300 grams per crab trap.

In 2006, the monsoon was only from November to December and crab harvest dropped to 100 grams per trap. In 2007, the monsoon winds only blew for three weeks in November, and the harvest was only 30 grams per trap. I believe that because of changes in the monsoon season and the short period that it blows, not as many blue crabs swim to Kudat from the South China Sea. There is also the possibility however that the declining yields may in part be due to the increasing land-based pollution coming into Marudu Bay.

The Kudat-Marudu Bay is trawled daily by shrimp boats using small nets, so if there are local crabs existing in Kudat waters, they would be caught by the trawlers year round but there are none. The season for adult-sized blue crabs is only at the end of the year when the monsoon blows them to Kudat. Hence, the blue crab’s decline should not due to over-harvesting and is mostly due to the erratic and shorter south-west monsoon season or from land pollution.

My crab business has been affected by the low harvest. With less crab to catch and unpredictable harvest volumes, I couldn’t keep up with the crab demand and in December 2008 I lost a contract to supply crabs to a crabmeat picking factory which supplies to the U.S. market.

Extensive Coastal Erosion

In Tanjung Agong area, the Bak-bak beach used to be 30 feet from the main road. In the last 10 years, the beach has come right up to the side of the road. The sea tides are getting higher. Sea level used to be 2.2 meters high at maximum. It has been rising since 2006 and now it is 2.4 meters at maximum. The fish landing Seng Heng Jetty gets flooded by the sea now. Floating rubbish gets deposited on the jetty after the high tides recede. When it was built in the 1990s, the sea level was lower than the jetty. High tides have caused coastal homes to collapse and get washed away.

Future Sustainability

Apart from the blue crab and other fisheries, I also notice that forest products are harvested too fast in Kudat and Sabah. Too many licenses have been approved for oil palm plantations. The chemical fertilizer and weed killers that run-off from these plantations are polluting the rivers and seas in Sabah. When it rains heavily, Marudu Bay waters turn brown from sediment run-off and erosion.

The government should enforce forest and fishing industries better to ensure sustainability. For a tree, it takes about 30-40 years to grow. The natural marine resources take only 1-2 years to rebound. With enforcement, such as using the proper trawler net size, the fisheries would not be in such a bad state. The ban on dynamite and cyanide fishing, which are destructive fishing methods, should also be better enforced.

Scientific review

Reviewed by: Dr Poh Poh Wong, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore, Singapore

The observations by Kong on the erratic nature of the Southwest Monsoon are consistent with detectable and measurable signs of climate change in Malaysia and Sabah.These signs include the late arrival of the Southwest Monsoon and the occurrence of droughts.

The observations on declining yields of swimmer blue crabs are interesting as climate change may influence the population dynamics such as spawning events, juvenile mortality and recruitment. However, there is no independent study in the area to support this trend and also the possibility that the declining yields can be due to the increasing pollution problem caused by insecticides, fertilisers and sediments coming into Marudu Bay.

The flooding of the Seng Heng jetty is more likely to be the result of its subsidence and not the rise of the sea level of 0.2 m.

References:

All articles are subject to scientific review by a member of the Climate Witness Science Advisory Panel.

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