Working to clean up the bottom of the ocean

The Star

15-07-2025

KOTA KINABALU: Pitch black, cold, silent.
The bottom of the ocean, where sunlight does not reach, where weird and unusual sea creatures dwell is now home to something else - trash from above, forcing both dead and living things to co-exist.
There are metals, scraps, plastics, and many other rubbish that are discarded from land, which along the way become accidental food that eventually kills marine creatures.
Degradation of this rubbish takes up to hundreds of years, but still, they can turn into micro-plastics and micro-metals that end up in our bodies when we consume water and eat, revealed Prof Datuk Dr Aileen Tan, director for the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies.
She said people only see what is above the sea, and seldom take notice of what happens underwater, but there is life beyond those cold, dark, ocean floors and it is quickly becoming landfills, threatening not only marine creatures but also humans.
On the other hand, from the deep end, going further up, thousands of sea creatures thrive.
Dr Abe Woo, a marine researcher with Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), said some are alien-looking, like a type of sea cucumber scientifically known as Scotoplanes or called sea pigs, and some are parasitic, like the Simenchelys parasitica.
He said this during an exhibition on deep-sea creatures launched at the Marine Ecology Research Centre (MERC), Gaya Island here, Tuesday (July 15).
The scientist, who is also attached to the Centre for Marine and Coastal Studies (Cemacs), said studies and education on marine biology, the impact of environmental neglect, as well as the importance of conservation, were vital in maintaining a healthy ocean ecosystem.
Woo said this part of the world - the Bornean islands within the Sulu Sea, Sulawesi Sea, Java Sea, Flores Sea and Makassar straits, among others - is the centre of maximum marine biodiversity in the world.
'So if we do not protect this part of the world where it is known to have three times the marine diversity compared to other seas, then we are looking at destruction,' he said, adding that with 70% of the earth covered in water, it would spell disaster for the world.
He said this exhibition, which runs until September this year, would showcase 13 deep-sea specimens, offering visitors a rare glimpse into life in the ocean's depths.
This exhibition will focus on advancing research related to the Biodiversity of Marine Benthic Invertebrates, with a strong emphasis on conservation efforts.
It is a collaborative initiative by Merc, Cemacs, USM and the Marine Ecology Research Centre (MERC) in partnership with Universiti Sains Malaysia and the Japanese National Museum of Nature and Science in the Conservation Initiative.
Key activities will include surveying, sampling, and identifying diverse marine invertebrates found in the waters surrounding Pulau Gaya and Pulau Sepanggar.
This project will be headed by Prof. Dr. Toshihiko Fujita, Head of the Department of Zoology at the Japanese National Museum of Nature and Science, as well as Prof Tan.
In his opening remarks, Prof Toshihiko said this exhibition is not just to display the rare and wondrous deep-sea specimens, but a collective responsibility to protect the ocean.
He said these creatures were retrieved from depths of over 2,000m around Japanese waters.
'Visitors will discover not just the beauty of the unknown, but also the challenges of life under immense pressure, cold, and darkness, and the remarkable technologies that allow us to explore these mysteries,' he said.