GLOBE TREKKING and Pulau Layang- Layang

hina’s ongoing land reclamation works on CZamora Reef, , Fiery Cross and two other reefs in the disputed Spratly Islands in South Sea

Ir. Chin Mee Poon have raised many an eyebrow www.facebook.com/ and protests, in particular from chinmeepoon The and USA. Ir. Chin Mee Poon Spratly Islands consist of is a retired civil more than 750 reefs, , engineer who derives cays, islets and islands, with a a great deal of joy and satisfaction from combined land area of only travelling to different about 4sq.km. and spread parts of the globe, over an area of more than capturing fascinating insights of the 425,000sq.km. Surrounding places and people countries, i.e. China, , he encounters and The Philippines, , sharing his experiences with others through Brunei and , all lay his photographs and claim to all or parts of the Spratly Islands, turning construct a permanent island over part of writing. the region into one of the most hotly contested the . In April 1986, our navy established a regions in the world. All except Brunei have station on the 1.2km long x 200m wide island. already taken measures to occupy some parts In 1991, a holiday resort was built on the island. of the Spratly Islands. The island soon became a very popular diving The Spratly Islands are economically and destination in the . strategically important. It is generally believed I first landed on Pulau Layang-Layang on that the area holds potentially significant oil the eve of Merdeka Day in 1997. I had gone and natural gas reserves. In addition, the area there with two diving buddies to explore the is a productive fishing ground, sees heavy undersea world around the island. Five years commercial shipping traffic and, should a later, I made a second trip to that remote country’s claim be recognised, would boost its island. This time, our group had expanded to 15. continental shelf substantially. We flew from in a 22-seater Our country lays claim to a small number twin-propeller airplane which took just one of islands in the Spratly Islands that fall within hour to cross the sea. The air-strip occupies our exclusive economic zone of 200 miles as half the island longitudinally. The other half defined by the United Nations Convention on was occupied by the resort in the centre, the Law of the Sea. Our navy currently occupies flanked by the naval station on one side and 3 islands – Swallow Reef (Pulau Layang-Layang), a seabird rookery on the other. When my Ardasier Reef (Terumbu Ubi) and Mariveles Reef friends and I were not in the water, we spent a (Terumbu Mantanani). lot of time watching and interacting with the Pulau Layang-Layang is about 300km thousands of seabirds. We had a great time north-west of . It is actually part of an on the island. oval-shaped atoll that measures 7km in length The vast majority of the visitors to Pulau and 2km in width. About 3km of the coral reef Layang-Layang are scuba divers; most of them becomes exposed when the tide is low. are Europeans and Japanese. Malaysians only Our government reinforced our sovereignty constitute about 10% of the visitors. claim over the island by erecting a signboard It is already 13 years since I last set foot on on the coral reef in the middle of 1980. Three Pulau Layang-Layang. I really miss the colourful years later, land reclamation work started to marine world and seabird colony there.

42 JURUTERA September 2015 Editor’s Note: We welcome contributions from all members on travel stories.