Galaxea, Journal of Coral Reef Studies (Special Issue): 411-417（2013）

Proc 2nd APCRS

Establishing limits of acceptable change (LAC) for anthropogenic development on , ,

Soo Ling AW1, *

1 Marine Research Institute, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Jalan UMS, 88999 , Sabah, Malaysia

* Corresponding author: S. Ling AW E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract Mabul Island is the place of intensive tourism development (about 10 dive resorts and lodges) and high Introduction indigenous population density (about 2500 people). The burgeoning human development on the island had raised Sabah, the second largest state in Malaysia is located at environmental concern over the degradation of island the northern part of the Borneo. The overwhelming marine resources and lack of proper management. By applying biodiversity had shaped Sabah into part of Sulu-Sulawesi the concept of Limits of Acceptable Change, assessment Marine Ecoregion (SSME) management area – the apex of selected indicators, namely biological (live coral of Coral Triangle which contains rich assemblages of cover), physical (land-use), socio-economic (feedback of coral species and fishery resources. situated at tourists) had indicated live coral cover degradation, the east coast of Sabah has created rapid economic de­ decimation of vegetation, incessant coastal erosion from velopment to the district through black pearl oyster unregulated land-use and tourist dissatisfaction due to Pinctada sp. farming, giant clam ranching project in Tun overcrowded situation. The unregulated anthropogenic Sakaran Marine Park (Semporna Islands Darwin Project development is viewed critical where the LAC for the – SIDP), seaweed project, coral propagation project and island resources has already been achieved and no further marine tourism to famous dive sites, particularly infrastructure construction is recommended to safeguard Island, Island, Mabul Island, and the remaining island resources. An integrated management others. for the island ecosystem, with clearly defined and prio­ Mabul Island has high economic value of recreational ritized action plans is urgently needed for implementation and ecological significances. It had attracted marine tou­ where it is particular important for sustainable tourism rism venture since 1990s primarily due to its close distance industry which contributes significantly to the economic to access to Sipadan Island. The unique marine environ­ ­ and social well-being of Mabul Island. ment of Mabul also offered tourists an opportunity to explore rare micro marine life through muck diving and Keywords Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC); inte­ experience the local culture of the friendly sea gypsy grated island management; Mabul, Sabah, Malaysia. community on the island. The tourism industry on the island became significant economic drivers to the local community by providing local employment in the resort and alternative source of income to the fisher folk com­ munity. 412 Aw: Limits of acceptable change for anthropogenic development

In the recent years, rapid anthropogenic developments on Mabul Island have severely decimated the land-use on the island. The expansion of the existing dive resorts and the establishment of the new ones still continue without a limit. Other environmental related issues of concern are the increasing population size of the island community, improper solid waste disposal and sewage treatment sys­ tems and unregulated exploitation of the island resources (terrestrial and marine) which deserve serious attention to establish threshold limit for sustainable use. These con­ cerns about environmental threats arising from rapid tourism development were also highlighted in studies by Teh and Cabanban (2007), Fortuny et al. (2008), Roman et al. (2007) and Abdullah et al. (2004). LAC represent reformulation of carrying capacity which assess ‘how much changes are acceptable’ by de­ Fig. 1 Location of Mabul Island, Malaysia termining the selected environmental indicators to formu­ late acceptable range of human use based on the desired environmental and social conditions and to initiate actions tares of land area and at the edge of continental shelf 200 to control their overloading (Stankey et al., 1985). The hectares of the reef area. Topographically, the reef profile LAC concept has been widely used for research in the of Mabul is considered shallow and the entire island wilderness planning (Stankey et al., 1985; Roggenbuck et ecosystem is connectively supported by Thalassia sea­ al., 1993), tourism planning and development (Ahn et al., grass beds and fringing coral reefs. 2002), environmental impact assessment for dredging activity in Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Oliver, 1995) LAC planning system and monitoring changes in biological population of non- As proposed by Stankey et al. (1985), the LAC frame­ sedentary organisms (Marsh, 1995). work contains nine sequential steps (Table 1). These steps The ultimate objective of this study was to determine include: identify the issues concerned in the area (Step 1), the limits of the island resources and environment for safe classify the area with its resources (Step 2), collect data and multiple human uses. Therefore, the measurable ob­ and evaluate the indicators selected (Step 3 to 5), decide jectives to achieve the target were assessment the status the desired condition (Step 6), develop management plan and changes of the selected indicators of biological (coral (Step 7 and 8) and imply strict enforcement of management cover), physical (land-use) and socio-economic (tourist) action and monitoring (Step 9) to achieve the objectives. and establishment of Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) However, this study was focused on the first 4 steps as for anthropogenic development on Mabul Island. highlighted.

Selection of the indicators Materials and methods The sampling method of the selected key indicators was described in Table 2. Line Intercept Transect (LIT) Study area method (English et al., 1997) was used to assess the Facing the Celebes Sea, Mabul Island is located within percentage of live coral cover by laying 4 replicates of 118°35′-118°38′E and 4°13′-4°15′N (Abdullah et al., 20 m transect at 3 m and 10 m in 2006. MapInfo version 8 2004), off the east coast of Sabah, East Malaysia (Fig. 1). and ArcView GIS version 3.2 were used to analyze the This small oval-shaped island possesses about 26.6 hec­ aerial photos and satellite images on the land-use. The Aw: Limits of acceptable change for anthropogenic development 413

Table 1 Nine steps of LAC (adopted from Stankey et al., 1985)

Fig. 2 Changes of live coral cover

Table 2 Bio-physical and socio-economic indicators fair conditions. The changes of live coral cover in Mabul Island were assessed by comparing the previous studies conducted in Mabul by Wood (1979) and Pilcher and Cabanban (2000) Figure 2. The results denoted a sharp decline of live coral cover from an average of 37.5% in 1979 to 17.6% in 2007 where no signs of coral recovery were noticed, however, turf algae and soft corals colonized the bombed area.

Changes of the land-use Overview of temporal and spatial changes, in terms of quantity of infrastructures and population size on Mabul primary base maps included aerial photos (scale 1:20000; Island in 1998 (the earliest record), 2007 and the future 1998) provided by Department of Survey and Mapping development plan are denoted in Table 3. The tourism Malaysia (Sabah branch) and www.google-earth.com developments were obviously aggressive where the resort (2007), and satellite image (SPOT 5, 2.5 m; 2008) gathered number and population density had increased dramatically from Malaysian Center of Remote Sensing (MACRES). over the 9-year period. For socio-economic study, probability-sampling method The resort and local residential areas were increased in by using semi-structured questionnaire was utilized to extent which recorded about 421% and 215% respectively. interview 100 tourists in 2006 and 2007 to obtain their Subsequently, the extensive expansion of man-made perception towards the environmental changes perceived infrastructures have decimated 31% of vegetation and from the anthropogenic development in Mabul. eroded about 4% of the sandy beach area. The intensive coastal infrastructure developments from construction of wave breakers, jetties, resort facilities and Results channel dredging had resulted critical beach erosion, alteration of the island shape and decimation of vegetation Biological assessment – live coral cover area. If the present course of development including the This study found that Mabul Island was characterized upcoming mega project is continued, it will exacerbate by low percentage cover (about 10-33%) of live corals the negative implications to the environment and social (hard and soft corals), which were categorized as poor to and economic condition for providing a healthy and good 414 Aw: Limits of acceptable change for anthropogenic development

Table 3 Changes over time of the land-use Table 4 Overcrowding approach of major issues (n＝100 individuals)

Table 5 Tolerance approach of LAC in the opinion of tourist (% of the individual interviewed, n＝100 individuals)

of the resort and the infrastructures on the small island. Tourist satisfaction has a notable impact on repeating visit and positive publicity. Other issues related with waste management and sewage treatment system were also thoroughly addressed.

Approach of LAC Based on the feedbacks from 100 tourists, a tolerance approach of LAC on the island resources as well as limitation on the resort number and population size of the island community are listed in Table 5. Majority of them can tolerate only as little as ＜10% of change or perhaps no more change for further degradation and development. They also viewed that operation of 1-5 quality tourism product. resorts and habitation of less than 500 individuals of islanders is appropriate for such small island where it Changes of socio-economic condition requires integrated management, not crowding and less Overcrowding approach was perceived from tourists in impact on the water quality, marine life and the surrounding regards to the number of resorts and infrastructures, marine environment. number of tourists, number of islanders, and others (Table 4). About 62% of the respondents expressed dissatisfac­ tion of the extreme overcrowding on the growing number Aw: Limits of acceptable change for anthropogenic development 415

land-use as it is one of the main causes for rapid deteri­ Discussion oration of the physical environment, natural resources and conservation (Burger, 2000). This study provides comprehensive assessments that covered both biophysical and socio-economic aspects of Perception to anthropogenic activity anthropogenic development on small island. The impression of tourists on the environment status in Mabul is generally homogenous where similar changes Status and threats on coral reef in Mabul were detected on the degradations of island resources and This study found that constant decrease of live coral over-development of the man-made infrastructures. In the cover occurred since the last decade, primarily due to fish nature-based tourism, the increased popularity of a site is bombing practiced by the local people where some fresh usually due to its attractions – rich biological and/or cul­ craters were recorded in the reef check survey (Anony­ tural values, however, the heavy exploitation has adversely mous, 1997). The lack of coral recovery in the bomb- led to degradation and in turn may diminish the quality of damaged reefs indicated no recruitments occurred in the the experience (Hillery et al., 2001). The economic advan­ unfavorable substratum for coral larvae resettlement tages received is over-emphasized without considering while the reefs also suffered from the various land-based the increased negative attributes such as crowding, con­ disturbances. To heal the reef naturally was time-con­ gestion and pollution (Ahn et al., 2002) suming and complicated. It is estimated that recovery of 50% of the blasted coral cover takes 40 or even more than Establishing ecologically limits of acceptable change hundred years (Raymundo et al., 2007). The drastic de­ The objective of LAC concept is not to prevent changes terioration in coral communities, especially reduction in but rather to control it, and to decide what management live hard coral covering indicates severe degradation in actions are required to maintain or enhance the desired coral reefs affected by multiple land-based activities, conditions (Stankey et al., 1985). As a certain destination water-based recreational uses and anthropogenic nutrient develops, the ability of the environment to resist change enrichment that inhibit coral recovery. The physical losses may diminish and carrying capacity levels need to be of hard coral cover at the study sites are viewed critical to adjusted accordingly (Velikova, 2001). Through the in­ provide long-term ecological services to the associated ventories of the ecological indicators and comparison to marine life, coastal protection as well as the marine the desired condition, therefore, a guideline for acceptable tourism which depend extensively on it. level of change is developed for each indicator. The present coral cover is declining at an alarming rate. Impact of the land-use changes Further impact will threaten survival of the remaining live Spatial and temporal changes in land-use on Mabul corals. It is viewed that the LAC in Mabul Island has been Island from the rapid tourism development and increasing achieved based on the indications of degradation of population size reflect the need of the formulation of en­ biophysical resources, and dissatisfaction level of tourists. vironmental regulations and their strict enforcement by Meanwhile, physical capacity limits of land-use are based the related authorities. This study identified that existing upon vulnerability to erosion, loss of vegetation and land-use involved tourism conflict, especially the intensive impact to the surrounding marine resources. Thus, a con­ tourism development in the private lands. Previous studies cept of ‘one resort one island’ is proposed and strongly in the small islands of Maldives also showed that tourism- recommended no more new resort or lodge allowed to related land alteration was as high as 100%, (Gössling, operate on such congested island. Strict enforcement also 2000). In relation to the water quality, land uses can cause should be applied to the forthcoming development of a non-point source pollution and significant water quality mega project to set up a new resort with 100 rooms chalet degradation in groundwater (De Andrade et al., 2008). It on the shallow reef areas. 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