Authorities, organisers must better monitor release of fish
KUALA LUMPUR: Authorities and fishing competition organisers must better monitor the release and removal of fish in lakes, especially non-native species, to prevent ecological harm.
Universiti Malaysia Terengganu senior research fellow at the Institute of Climate Adaptation and Marine Biotechnology, Professor Datuk Dr Mazlan Abd Ghaffar said organisers should also record the average size of fish released into lakes to identify whether recaptured fish are new or existing ones.
He warned that even enclosed lakes could overflow during heavy rain, allowing invasive species like African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) to escape and disrupt native ecosystems.
"The African catfish is a very hardy catfish species and very aggressive compared to local indigenous fish species, as they pose a greater ecological threat due to their behaviour and rapid growth," he told the New Straits Times.
Once released into rivers, they can outcompete native species, disrupt food chains and take over natural habitats, he added.
"For competitions, organisers must ensure that participants take the fish home and cook them - this would prevent further ecological harm… and ensure that these fish are not discarded back into the river after the competition.
"The Fisheries Department, too, should also monitor the number of fish released and removed, tracking the inflow and outflow accurately," he said.
Asked about the impact of the species entering rivers, Mazlan said these aggressive, fast-growing fish will compete for food and outcompete native species.
He said the risk of them preying on indigenous species is high.
The Fisheries Department has announced that it will draft new regulations to strengthen control activities of fish release into public waters, following complaints regarding the release of African catfish into Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (Maeps) Lake.
The fish were released in conjunction with a fishing competition organised by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) for the Showtech 2025 programme.
The department said the fishing competition's secretariat will install additional hapa nets, provide bins to collect African catfish caught during the competition, and disseminate awareness material while carrying out fishing activities throughout the programme.
Earlier, on May 7, the Fisheries Department had also advised against the release of foreign fish species into public waters without proper consultation, following an incident on May 2 involving a non-governmental organisation releasing fish into a drain at Jalan Lee Sam.
An inspection found that the fish released was also African catfish.
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New Straits Times
2 days ago
- New Straits Times
Authorities, organisers must better monitor release of fish
KUALA LUMPUR: Authorities and fishing competition organisers must better monitor the release and removal of fish in lakes, especially non-native species, to prevent ecological harm. Universiti Malaysia Terengganu senior research fellow at the Institute of Climate Adaptation and Marine Biotechnology, Professor Datuk Dr Mazlan Abd Ghaffar said organisers should also record the average size of fish released into lakes to identify whether recaptured fish are new or existing ones. He warned that even enclosed lakes could overflow during heavy rain, allowing invasive species like African catfish (Clarias gariepinus) to escape and disrupt native ecosystems. "The African catfish is a very hardy catfish species and very aggressive compared to local indigenous fish species, as they pose a greater ecological threat due to their behaviour and rapid growth," he told the New Straits Times. Once released into rivers, they can outcompete native species, disrupt food chains and take over natural habitats, he added. "For competitions, organisers must ensure that participants take the fish home and cook them - this would prevent further ecological harm… and ensure that these fish are not discarded back into the river after the competition. "The Fisheries Department, too, should also monitor the number of fish released and removed, tracking the inflow and outflow accurately," he said. Asked about the impact of the species entering rivers, Mazlan said these aggressive, fast-growing fish will compete for food and outcompete native species. He said the risk of them preying on indigenous species is high. The Fisheries Department has announced that it will draft new regulations to strengthen control activities of fish release into public waters, following complaints regarding the release of African catfish into Malaysia Agro Exposition Park Serdang (Maeps) Lake. The fish were released in conjunction with a fishing competition organised by the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi) for the Showtech 2025 programme. The department said the fishing competition's secretariat will install additional hapa nets, provide bins to collect African catfish caught during the competition, and disseminate awareness material while carrying out fishing activities throughout the programme. Earlier, on May 7, the Fisheries Department had also advised against the release of foreign fish species into public waters without proper consultation, following an incident on May 2 involving a non-governmental organisation releasing fish into a drain at Jalan Lee Sam. An inspection found that the fish released was also African catfish.
The Star
26-05-2025
- The Star
Lesser flamingos lose one of their only four African breeding sites to sewage
KIMBERLEY, South Africa (Reuters) -Until the last half-decade, the majestic lesser flamingo had four African breeding sites: two salt pans in Botswana and Namibia, a soda lake in Tanzania, and an artificial dam outside South Africa's historic diamond-mining town of Kimberley. Now it only has three. Years of raw sewage spilling into Kamfers Dam, the only South African water body where lesser flamingos congregated in large enough numbers to breed, have rendered the water so toxic that the distinctive pink birds have abandoned it, according to conservationists and a court judgment against the local council seen by Reuters. Lesser flamingos are currently considered near-threatened, rather than endangered, by the International Union for Conservation of Nature: there are 2-3 million left, four-fifths of them spread across Africa, the rest in a smaller area of South Asia. But they are in steep decline, and the poisoning of one of their last few breeding sites has worsened their plight dramatically. Tania Anderson, a conservation biologist specialising in flamingos, told Reuters the IUCN was about to increase its threat-level to "vulnerable", meaning "at high risk of extinction in the wild", owing largely to their shrinking habitats of salty estuaries or soda lakes shallow enough for them to wade through. "It's really very upsetting," Anderson said of the sewage spills in Kamfers Dam. "Flamingos play a pivotal role in maintaining the water ecosystems of our wetlands." A 2021 study in Biological Conservation found sewage threatens aquatic ecosystems across a vast area of the planet. Although 200 nations came together at the U.N. COP16 biodiversity summit in Colombia last year to tackle threats to wildlife, no agreement was reached. 'THEY JUST DISAPPEARED' Footage taken by the Wildlife and Environment Society of South Africa in May 2020 shows Kamfers Dam turned flamboyant pink with flamingos. When Reuters visited this month, there were none. A closer look at the water revealed a green sludge that bubbled and stank of human waste. "It was a sea of pink," Brenda Booth recalled, as she gazed over the bird-free lake located on the farm she owns, dotted with acacia trees and antelope. "They all just disappeared," said Booth, who last month secured the court order compelling the African National Congress-run municipality in charge of Kimberley, a city of 300,000, to fix the problem. Over the years, the treatment plant "became progressively dysfunctional to the point where ... approximately 36 megalitres a day of untreated sewage was being discharged into the dam," said Adrian Horwitz, the lawyer bringing the case in the High Court of South Africa, Northern Cape division. Municipality manager Thapelo Matlala told Reuters thieves had vandalised the plant and stolen equipment, grinding it to a halt. "We are working on a new strategy for ... repairing the damage," he said outside his office, adding that this needed 106 million rand ($5.92 million), money the council didn't have. Failure to deliver services was one of the main reasons the ANC lost its 30-year-strong majority in last year's elections. Lesser flamingos mostly eat spirulina, a blue-green algae - filtering it through their beaks. This limits them to alkaline water bodies, largely in East Africa's Rift Valley. They're fussy about where they breed, with just three sites in India alongside the remaining three in Africa. Flamingos began breeding at Kamfers Dam in 2006, said Ester van der Westhuizen-Coetzer, wetlands specialist for local diamond miner Ekapa Group, as she waded through grassland at the edge of another lake where she had spotted a flock. In 2020, there were 71,000 on the dam, with up to 5,000 new chicks each season. "They've missed three or four breeding seasons," she said, and many also died of botulism, a disease that flourishes in waste. Sewage has become a problem across South Africa, where few treatment plants are in working order, and if nothing is done, "the whole system will degrade and blow up," she said. "That will have a huge impact, and not only on flamingos." ($1 = 17.8903 rand) (Editing by Kirsten Donovan)
The Star
21-05-2025
- The Star
Amazon fires drive unprecedented global forest loss in 2024, report says
FILE PHOTO: A view of a farm near a forest fire in the Amazon in an area of the Trans-Amazonian Highway BR230 in Labrea, Amazonas state, Brazil September 4, 2024. REUTERS/Bruno Kelly/File Photo SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Massive fires fueled by climate change led global forest loss to smash records in 2024, according to a report issued on Wednesday. Loss of tropical pristine forests alone reached 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres), an 80% spike compared to 2023 and an area roughly the size of Panama, mainly because Brazil, the host of the next global climate summit in November, struggled to contain fires in the Amazon amid the worst drought ever recorded in the rainforest. A myriad of other countries, including Bolivia and Canada, were also ravaged by wildfires. It was the first time the annual report, issued by the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland, showed fires as the leading cause of tropical forest loss, a grim milestone for a naturally humid ecosystem that is not supposed to burn. "The signals in these data are particularly frightening," said Matthew Hansen, the co-director of alab at the University of Maryland that compiled and analyzed the data. "The fear is that the climate signal is going to overtake our ability to respond effectively." Latin America was hit particularly hard, the report said, with the Amazon biome hitting its highest level of primary forest loss since 2016. Brazil, which holds the largest share of the world's tropical forests, lost 2.8 million hectares (6.9 million acres), the most of any country. It was a reversal ofthe progress made in 2023 when President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office promising to protect the world's largest rainforest. 'This was unprecedented, which means we have to adapt all our policy to a new reality,' said Andre Lima, who oversees deforestation control policies for Brazil's Ministry of Environment, adding that fire, which was never among the leading causes of forest loss, is now a top priority for the government. Bolivia overtook the Democratic Republic of Congo as the second country with the most tropical forest loss despite having less than half the amount of forest as the African nation, which also saw a spike in forest loss last year. Bolivia's forest loss surged by 200% in 2024, with a drought, wildfires and a government-incentivized agricultural expansion as the leading causes. Across Latin America, the report noted similar trends in Mexico, Peru, Nicaragua, and Guatemala. Conflicts in Colombia and the Democratic Republic of Congo also boosted deforestation rates, as armed groups used up natural resources. Outside the tropics, boreal forests, which evolved with seasonal fires, also posted record-high tree loss in 2024, with Canada and Russia each losing 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) in 2024 as wildfires got out of control. Southeast Asia bucked the global trend with Malaysia, Laos, and Indonesia all posting double-digit decreases in primary forest loss, as domestic conservation policy, combined with efforts by communities and the private sector, continued to effectively contain fires and agricultural expansion. Another outlier was the Charagua Iyambae Indigenousterritory in southern Bolivia, which was able to keep the country's record fires at bay through land-use policies and early warning systems. Rod Taylor, the global director for forests at the WRI, said that as leaders descend on the Amazonian city of Belem for the next climate summit, he would like to see countries make progress in introducing better funding mechanisms for conservation. "At the moment," he said, "there's more money to be paid by chopping forests down than keeping them standing." (Reporting by Manuela Andreoni and Alexander Villegas; Editing by Chris Reese)
