IPOH, April 2 — Environmental groups today reiterated their call for the Perak government to gazette Pulau Sembilan, a cluster of islands off the coast of Bagan Datuk, as a marine park following the recent intrusion by tour operators and tourists.

Pertubuhan Pelindung Khazanah Alam Malaysia (Peka) president Puan Sri Shariffa Sabrina Syed Akil decried the open disregard for the ban on the islands.

"This is horrible. Even Perak Sultan Nazrin Muizzuddin Shah has asked that tourists be stopped from entering the area. Why are his instructions not being respected?” she told Malay Mail.

"We have lost too much of our natural heritage. It’s a disaster to allow the islands to be open to the public. They should be gazetted as a marine park.”

Yesterday, Perak State Park Corporation (PSPC) general manager Mohd Shah Redza Hussein told Malay Mail that tour operators still bring hundreds of tourists to the islands that have been officially closed for preservation works since April 2017.

Mohd Shah said the target to reopen the islands, which was scheduled for December last year, could not be met as the PSPC decided that more time was needed to protect them after recent intrusions led to more damage.

He also said the priority now was to preserve the island cluster rather than tourism as it has the last few populations of good living reef and coral ecosystems in the Straits of Malacca and critical breeding areas for the local fish and other marine population.

Shariffa said that gazetting the islands as a marine park would attract researchers to conduct studies on the rare plankton, which emit a blue glow in the dark along its shoreline.

Echoing Shariffa, Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) field officer Meor Razak Meor Abdul Rahman said that bringing in researchers would be more profitable for the state government, and also better for the environment compared to tourism. 

"When the islands are gazetted as a marine park, more researchers will be interested in conducting studies there. Researchers are not like tourists; they stay for months.

"When they stay for a longer period, this involves expenditure on food, accommodation, transportation to the islands and many other activities, which would benefit the local community and the state economy as well,” he explained.

"Furthermore, they understand the value of the environment and the marine life. So the chances of damage occurring on the islands would be less.”

Meor Razak said that the authorities should also beef up enforcement around the islands, including the hiring of more rangers for the state park, to stop more tourists from visiting them.