This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on March 17, 2025 - March 23, 2025

Coral reefs in Malaysia are experiencing a gradual decline in live coral cover (LCC), a key indicator of reef health. According to Reef Check Malaysia’s Status of Coral Reefs in Malaysia 2024 report, released in January 2025, the LCC decreased from 45.9% in 2023 to 44.7% in 2024.

This decline has been ongoing since 2022, following the lifting of the Movement Control Order (MCO) and the resurgence of tourism after the Covid-19 pandemic.

The deterioration is attributed mainly to unsustainable tourism, says Julian Hyde, CEO of Reef Check Malaysia, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) focused on coral reef monitoring and island-based educational programmes.

The NGO surveyed 315 sites in 2024, including 157 in the Sunda Shelf eco-region, 22 in the Strait of Melaka eco-region and 136 in the North Borneo eco-region. The surveys are a continuation of a national reef check survey programme that has been running for 18 years. Survey sites, mainly near islands, include both established marine protected areas and non-protected areas.

The survey report states that there was a steady decline in reef health from 2016 to 2020, owing to a number of factors including physical impacts from tourists, raised levels of nutrients in the waters, which are typically from sources like agricultural runoff or human sewage and coral bleaching caused by warming oceans. All these are detrimental to the growth of coral reefs.

On average, reefs in Malaysia are in “fair condition” but the indicators for disturbance are high.

In 2021, the reef’s health showed improvement, attributed mainly to pandemic-related restrictions on tourism. This points to a possible management measure where temporarily closing reef areas could allow them to recover.

Hyde observes that while tourism is important to the country’s economy, uncontrolled marine tourism is detrimental to the health of the reef.

“Malaysia has very high marine biodiversity. We are part of the coral triangle and the coral reefs are one of the interconnected marine ecosystems, together with mangroves and sea grasses. [The reefs] are a breeding and feeding ground for a large number of marine species that feed into the fisheries industry. This then also provides jobs for the small-scale fishermen,” says Hyde.

Its damaging effects include increased boat traffic that can physically damage reefs and stir up sediment. Untrained divers may break coral formations and litter. Meanwhile, pollution from tourism facilities can degrade water quality.

He notes that healthy reefs support fisheries, contributing to food security and livelihoods. This economic dependency strengthens the case for urgent action.

“While we cannot [immediately] do anything about global warming or ocean warming, what we can do [now] is manage and minimise the local impacts. If you think about 250,000 people visiting Pulau Tioman and many of them go diving and snorkelling, how much physical impact are they causing to reefs?” says Hyde.

“Divers sometimes crash into the corals. Snorkellers stand on corals thinking they are not doing any harm. And then we have things like trash and waste in the sea. How is that affecting the reefs? All of these local impacts are happening on the islands and affecting the water and reefs around the islands.”

To effectively curb and manage the impacts of tourism on coral reefs, the NGO suggests a multi-stakeholder approach to build the resilience of coral reefs.

Suggestions include offering training courses for boat operators to reduce impacts from groundings and anchors to the reefs, and limiting the number of tourists in particularly sensitive areas.

In addition, the report states that the government should introduce a more sustainable tourism model, moving away from mass tourism.

“The government is also asked to consider establishing a joint management body to integrate local communities into the management of Malaysia’s marine protected areas. The goal of coral reef management in Malaysia is to protect and conserve coral reefs and other interconnected marine ecosystems such as mangroves and seagrass so that they continue to provide the ecosystem services that society relies on,” says Hyde.

The report indicates a significant disparity in coral reef health across Malaysia. Specifically, reefs in Pangkor Laut, Perak, exhibit excellent to good health, while those in Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, Sabah, are classified as being in poor condition.

Hyde says the impact in these areas varies because of increased tourism activities, dynamite fishing and ocean warming. Those that showed good or excellent health were mostly protected marine areas with little to no human activity.

“Pangkor Laut is an outlier because there is only one single reef there and it is in an area with very little tourism and happens to be one quite healthy stretch of reef. Each area is different. Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, for example, is just near a major city, Kota Kinabalu,” he adds.

“Tunku Abdul Rahman Park has very high boat traffic and a lot of snorkelling tourism. There are also a lot of big rivers emptying into the sea, bringing with it pollution and trash and so on. The reefs there are under a lot of stress just simply from the surroundings.”

Moreover, the decline in LCC and damage from activities such as dynamite fishing and pollution directly threaten local incomes derived from fisheries and tourism, underscoring effective reef management.

“We need to look at how we can make our tourism more sustainable. Do we need to manage the numbers of tourists, for example? Do we need to limit the development of new resorts on the islands? Should we introduce best practices to reduce impacts on the reefs? Can we introduce more regulations to help protect reefs? Those are the immediate things we can do. We need more protected areas and to look at the effectiveness of the management of existing protected areas so that we can save the reefs that we already have,” says Hyde.

In Malaysia, marine parks are established to protect and conserve a variety of habitats and aquatic marine life. All activities damaging coral reefs and marine ecosystems are prohibited and illegal under the Fisheries Act 1985. According to the Department of Fisheries Malaysia’s website, more than 42 islands in Malaysia are currently gazetted as marine parks.

“It’s crucial that we continue to enforce laws and increase public awareness. We can look at managing local impacts caused by tourism and coastal development that have the biggest immediate impact on coral reefs. And that means best practices, sustainable tourism and sustainable coastal development should be done,” says Hyde.

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