[Coral-List] Fwd: Re: Mystery Event - Lankayan Island, Sulu Sea Sandakan

[Don Baker]

Hi Coral-L:

The posted herein statement from the Reef Guardian/Lankayan Marine Biologist (Ms Chung) is the most accurate account....

I stand corrected on the suspected source of the event but very concerned at the toxic nature of the runoff from the river that is 26 Km from the island itself..and this nows leads into another issue.

The Issue => Land runoff from existing and expanding oil palm estates that have virtually covered all of North Borneo less the high grounds.  

The independent oil palm mills are not regulated with any viable form of effect environmental enforcement within Sabah itself. (Again..the key word here is enforcement) They wait until there is heavy rainfall and only then do they dump their retaining ponds with the gross processing mill effluents. 

The Gov. State & Fed levels of environmental regulation and enforcement seem to be controlled by their receiving deep pockets and very little effort is done to control the pollution itself.  And I challenge these entities with the Lankayan Event! 

Biogas and the biofuel syndrome may be causing the demise of all of Bornoe's forests.   

Just what does this mean for the future of coral reefs worldwide if the tropical forests are chopped and replanted with mono-crops??  The lag periods between chopped, cleared ground until replanted, regrowth is the most critical period for reasons of soil and chemical runoff.  This is also true for existing plantations that have to chop old oil palms down to replant new trees.

Comments? Advice?  



Note: forwarded message attached.

Alternate Email: donbjr95 at hotmail.com

"Dedication and motivated direction in achieving specific goals related to the care and protection of living things is not necessarily a guaranteed formula for success.  Success is, more often than not, a direct result of a person’s passion in addition to the above formula." [Don Baker, Marine Conservationist/Activist, 1998]
       
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