Tioman Airport Decision: A Watershed in Biodiversity Conservation?

The decision last week by the Malaysian government to shelve the proposed airport development on Tioman island is both welcome, and timely, for many reasons.

Conserving Tioman’s natural resources

The most immediate and important reason, of course, is that it paves the way for conserving Tioman Island in its current, largely pristine state. This in itself is a good thing considering the island’s abundant biodiversity resources which, as the world is now (belatedly?) realising, need to be protected.

Tioman Island's beautiful coral reef.

This endeavour would be challenging with a new airport bringing more visitors, and all the consequent impacts that would result from more resort development, more roads and infrastructure, more waste…you get the picture.

So, it is a great start.

But perhaps this opens up so many other opportunities to review old decisions, made with old information and out-of-date thinking, that are just not appropriate in the world as it is today.

If that sounds like hyperbole, then consider the following.

Tourism trends in the post-COVID world

Whither tourism? I’ve talked about this before, particularly focusing on the impacts of large numbers of visitors on people and places.

We saw this in Mantanani Island, where visitor numbers increased, over a 10-year period, from around 50 per day to as many as three thousand per day: clearly not sustainable, with huge impacts on ecosystems and the local community.

Numerous industry surveys tell us that “tourists” are now looking for more “authentic” experiences, less crowded, with intact nature, the whole thing. Quiet, private, pristine.

But which “tourists” are those?

Last week I saw a video of an “island” crawling with tourists. All there for the ultimate Instagram Moment – white sand, perfect blue sea, islands in the distance…and with careful camera angles, the 200 other people sharing the sandbank can be kept out of the shot!!

Apparently, when asked about such crowded destinations, many respondents said, “it’s ok, we don’t mind – we are used to it”. So clearly, not all tourists are seeking a “private commune” with nature.

I am probably over-simplifying, but can we really segment the tourism industry in this way?

Can we separate out tourists looking for the quiet, nature-focused getaway and tourists who don’t mind more crowded destinations?

And if we can, what are the characteristics of each group in terms of expectations, duration of stay, and spending, for example? Are people looking for the authentic experience willing to pay more – and if so, how much more?

Such an experience suggests more intensive management efforts and limits on visitor numbers – it’s going to be expensive.

So, the tourist will have to pay for it. Thailand is certainly moving in this direction, away from beach/sea holidays to more nature-based tourism. There must be a value proposition for them.

Tourism in Malaysia

Which leads us to the question: which of the above groups is Malaysia targeting?

Because it seems to me that if the division is real, then targeting one group or the other should be a deliberate choice.

You either cater for small-scale, niche market tourists, with appropriate facilities and infrastructure – and charge accordingly. Or you go large-scale, mass tourism, again with appropriate facilities and infrastructure – and charge accordingly for that, too.

Clearly, there are huge implications in this choice for destinations, and the East Coast islands are among the most popular destinations in Malaysia.

Is the plan to drastically increase tourism numbers? Or is it to target the group looking for an authentic experience? Because islands like Tioman have that – in spades. If the former case, yes, we will probably need new infrastructure, including resorts and transportation. If the latter – maybe less development. 

Who makes the decision? On what basis? What research has been done?

I guess what I’m saying is that now might be a good time for Malaysia to rethink its tourism strategy and decide which of these markets to target. Because I don’t think you can cater to both in the same destination; it has to be a deliberate decision.

After all – from a revenue perspective, a hundred tourists paying RM 1,000 per trip brings in the same revenue as one thousand tourists paying RM 100 per visit…but with different challenges.

Managing Marine Parks

While we are reviewing our approach to tourism, maybe it is an appropriate moment to review the approach to Marine Park management. This is because the islands that are surrounded by Marine Parks are popular tourism destinations, and they have what both groups are looking for.

Under the current regime, the Federal government looks after the Marine Park – the doughnut of water surrounding the island; the State governments are responsible for managing the islands themselves.

Which introduces a conflict situation.

State governments don’t have much incentive to protect the sea because they aren’t responsible for it, so perhaps they want to develop tourism. But the Federal government doesn’t have control of development on the islands that might damage the marine resources in the sea…you can see where that ends up.

Perhaps the time has come to review this system.

How about integrating the management of the Marine Park and the islands? How about inviting State governments to participate in managing the Marine Parks so they also get some benefit from that?

In this way, development on the islands can be coordinated with protecting the marine resources – not to mention the terrestrial resources, too.

And while we are at it – let’s give a seat at the table to the local communities living on the islands, too! There is plenty of evidence that local communities make an important contribution to marine resource management where they have a chance to do so – and our own experience on Tioman reflects this.

The Tioman Marine Conservation Group (TMCG) is made up of local islanders.

Biodiversity financing

The final piece of the jigsaw: financing.

The recently signed Kunming-Montreal Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (the GBF) calls for urgent action to protect biodiversity. Importantly it speaks at length about funding for biodiversity conservation, acknowledging the estimated funding gap of US$ 700 billion per year that has been highlighted as one of the key challenges facing us.

There are emerging biodiversity-based financing mechanisms that could release significant funds for biodiversity conservation from the private sector – funds that government just don’t have themselves.

These so-called “biodiversity credits” could be a game-changer in funding biodiversity conservation. Yes, there are risks, and yes, much work needs to be done to introduce appropriate regulations and standards, but on balance, I would say there are some interesting things happening that we are following very closely.

A catalyst for change

All the above ideas and suggestions are strongly supported by policies in Malaysia.

On a national level, the National Policy on Biological Diversity 2016 – 2025 speaks about Malaysia’s commitment to conserving its biodiversity; the 12th Malaysia Plan includes commitments to safeguard natural capital.

In addition, Malaysia has adopted two international agreements: the Sustainable Development Goals, which call for sustainable management of ecosystems, and the recently-signed Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), which includes commitments to increase protected areas and reduce biodiversity loss.

The above agreements and policies talk extensively about funding for conservation and the role of local communities.

And here’s what that made me think.

Looking at through this lens of change I am outlining; the bigger context of the brave decision announced last week by the Environment Minister, YB Nik Nazri, starts to look even more important.

Imagine it leading to this scenario – a new paradigm in which:

• Fewer tourists visit protected areas but bring the same economic value as mass tourism;

• Protected areas are sustainably managed by all stakeholders, including local communities, for long-term conservation goals;

• Private sector funds are invested alongside government funds.

Joined up, collaborative management.

What’s not to like?

The 30x30 Target - The Forgotten Bit

In my previous post, I talked about the recent signing of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and tried to describe the treaty in its entirety. Now it’s time to look at some of the details – and how we implement the treaty.

That’s where the devil lies.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework

In December 2022, Montreal, Canada, was the setting for the 15th Conference of Parties (COP 15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Presided over by China but held in Montreal (hence the name), the nations of the world finally agreed a package of measures to address what many scientists consider to be the dangerous loss of biodiversity that we are living through, not to mention the associated ecosystem services that biodiversity bestows upon society that we could not live without. Some even call it the “sixth great extinction” – the last one being 65.5 million years ago that saw the end of the dinosaurs…and nothing was ever the same again.

The vision of the framework is a world of living in harmony with nature where:

“By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.”

The mission of the framework for the period up to 2030, towards the 2050 vision is: To take urgent action to halt and reverse biodiversity loss to put nature on a path to recovery for the benefit of people and planet by conserving and sustainably using biodiversity, and ensuring the fair and equitable sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources while providing the necessary means of implementation.

Profound words. But what do they mean in practice? The treaty has four goals and 23 targets, each of which will have indicators, means of verification, etc. But how do we go about implementing such a complex treaty – with topics ranging from protected area expansion through to financing mechanisms.

Let’s start with one target – perhaps the most divisive of them all – target 3, the so-called 30 by 30 target.

Target 3: 30x30

The first thing to note is…it’s long! In the original text, it runs to 8 lines…and it’s all one sentence! To simplify (and any errors in “interpretation” are mine alone), target 3 commits nations to:

• Ensure and enable that by 2030 at least 30 percent of terrestrial, inland water, and of coastal and marine areas, especially areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, are effectively conserved and managed.

This target has attracted international attention, with NGOs, civil society, academics and other institutions fiercely lobbying for the need to protect more of our natural areas, so as to conserve them in their native state and ensure we continue to benefit from those important ecosystem services. Such as food, clean water, climate regulation…

Just on the marine side, two global coalitions have formed to advocate for adopting this target:

• The High Ambition Coalition (HAC) for Nature and People is an intergovernmental group of more than 100 countries co-chaired by Costa Rica and France and by the United Kingdom as Ocean co-chair. Its central goal is to protect at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030 with the aim of halting the accelerating loss of species and protecting vital ecosystems that are the source of our economic security.

• The Global Ocean Alliance (GOA) is a 73-country strong alliance, led by the UK. It champions ambitious ocean action within the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In particular, the GOA supports the target to protect at least 30% of the global ocean in Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) by 2030. This is known as the ’30 by 30 target’.

Remind me…30% of what?

If you have read my earlier posts you will already know that for a time during negotiations of the GBF there was a lack of clarity on just what the target meant. The timescale is clear – by 2030.

But… 30% of what?

Which ecosystems? Did it mean 30% of a participating country’s EEZ? Or 30% of the global oceans?

The 30% is scientifically justifiable: there are plenty of studies out there that suggest that protecting 30% of a particular ecosystem (or set of ecosystems) in a certain geographical area is a good idea (I’m not going to reference them all here…that’s what Google is for). One might call it prudent – like farmers used to put aside one-third of their land; let’s set aside a third of our ecosystems to protect them from harm, so they continue to supply those ecosystem services.

Imagine a cluster of islands off the East coast of Peninsular Malaysia. There are coastal mangroves, intertidal and tidal seagrass meadows, and coral reefs; all in a defined geographical area. Collectively they support community food security and livelihoods, as well as jobs in tourism, coastal protection, and so on. What the science says is that it is prudent to protect one-third of each of those three ecosystems. Hence, 30%. 

What about the scope? 30% of what area, precisely?

In the end, it became clear that the intention of the target was to protect 30% of the global oceans, and that it is a “global ambition”, not a national target. Which is a good thing for Malaysia because as I have argued previously much of our EEZ doesn’t have much in the way of ecosystems, so how much protection should we afford those areas? Surely for a highly biodiverse country like Malaysia, with limited resources, the focus should be on the “areas of particular importance for biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services”.

And that’s how we arrived at our strategy to map the important coastal ecosystems and then identify which 30% we might want to protect, and then implement management systems to look after them.

30x30…the forgotten bit

And this is where – for me – we come to the crux of target 3. Because most people focus on the bit that talks about the area to protect – the 30%…and miss out on the incredibly important part of the target where it says “effectively conserved and managed...equitably governed…protected areas”. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.

Ah. There’s a thing in the conservation world called a “Paper Park” – the legislation is in place, the Park is accordingly recognised by the government, there’s a management agency…but somehow the protected area, or Park, isn’t managed well.

It exists purely on paper. And it is a problem throughout the world. Review the literature and one comes across all sorts of studies on this topic. I’m not saying all Parks are “Paper Parks”, I’m questioning whether we are achieving that important bit of the target: effectively and equitably managed and governed.

Establishing protected areas tends to be the preserve of national governments, or regional collaborations – or even international agreements. And, in most cases, governments are in charge of setting up their protected area estate.

So, it’s difficult for a small NGO like Reef Check Malaysia to talk about establishing Protected Areas ourselves – it’s just not realistic. But where organisations like us can make a difference is in helping to optimise how a Protected Area is managed.

Why?

Because we work with the communities living in these places and, I would be bold enough to suggest, perhaps understand their challenges and needs better than a bureaucratic organisation like a Protected Area management body – particularly if that body is geographically distant with limited local resources.

Full disclosure: we work closely with the managers of Malaysia’s Marine Parks (as they call MPAs here). In Peninsular Malaysia, that’s the Marine Parks Section of the Department of Fisheries; in the State of Sabah it’s Sabah Parks, and the Sarawak Forestry Corporation in the State of Sarawak.

We work with the communities living in the Protected Areas

We are also starting to work with management agencies at state level in Peninsular Malaysia (I know, it’s complicated!) including Terengganu, Johor and Perak. We have teams working on several islands – both inside and outside Marine Parks. This is not intended to be a criticism of those agencies – quite the opposite: given the size of the challenges they face; they’re doing a good job.

But…things could be better.

Every year we survey over 200 coral reef sites around Malaysia (reports are available on-line at www.reefcheck.org.my). Our data over the last few years show a gradual decline in reef health across Malaysia. Local impacts such as marine tourism, coastal development, pollution from sewage and other run-off are all damaging these critical ecosystems

So: this is a plea to strengthen the management of these important ecosystems. And more importantly – to recognise and involve an important stakeholder that has largely been side lined to date – the local communities on the islands. These so called “IPLCs” (Indigenous People and Local Communities) have been strongly recognised by the new treaty, and they are taking a more central role in management.

Next: how to make this actually happen!

Overview of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework

So that just happened, back before the holidays. After all the waiting, months – in fact, years – of delays, numerous rounds of meetings, political wrangling (and probably a bit of Machiavellian intrigue and plotting, thrown in for good measure too!!)…at the 11th hour, on the 19th December 2022, the world’s nations finally signed a new treaty to protect and conserve biodiversity for the period 2021-2030.

Now that the dust has settled, and setting aside some suggestions that some nations were unhappy with certain aspects of how the conference was managed and targets were pushed through, I think it appropriate to look at the treaty in its entirety – and in context, to assess what it means for biodiversity in general and Malaysia in particular.

Biodiversity is important to our survival

Say what?

I sometimes get the feeling that many people have the view that “biodiversity” is the preserve of brainiac scientists in white lab coats. Admittedly, for some people it’s a difficult concept to get your head around – I mean, look at the definition of biodiversity:

…the variety of plant and animal life in the world or in a particular habitat, a high level of which is usually considered to be important and desirable.

Wow. Exciting, not. Doesn’t exactly spark a strong emotional reaction – not in the way that, say,  “Save The Tigers” might.

Let’s try again:

Biodiversity is essential for the processes that support all life on Earth, including humans. Without a wide range of animals, plants and microorganisms, we cannot have the healthy ecosystems that we rely on to provide us with the air we breathe and the food we eat. And people also value nature of itself.

Better?

Let’s put it this way: whether we really understand it or not, biodiversity – the very diversity of life on earth – is important to our survival, and we need to get better at protecting it.

So…what’s going wrong?

I’ve used the analogy before, but…Conservation researchers Paul R. and Anne Ehrlich posited in the 1980s that species are to ecosystems what rivets are to a plane’s wing. Losing one might not be a disaster, but each loss adds to the likelihood of a serious problem.

The Living Planet Index looks at over 38,000 populations of more than 5,200 animal species across the globe. In the most comprehensive index to date, tracking the health of nature over 50 years, the data show an average of 69% decline in wildlife populations around the world between 1970 and 2018.

Source: Living Planet Index (https://www.livingplanetindex.org/latest_results)

Quite a lot of rivets going missing…

How important is this treaty?

Conservation International lists 5 reasons why biodiversity is important:

1.       Wildlife support the healthy ecosystems that we rely on.

2.       Keeping biodiverse ecosystems intact helps humans stay healthy.

3.       Biodiversity is an essential part of the solution to climate change.

4.       Biodiversity is good for the economy.

5.       Biodiversity is an integral part of culture and identity.

Could it be any clearer?

Given current rates of biodiversity loss – this treaty is critical. Setting aside delays caused by the Covid pandemic, the post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is intended to pick up from where the previous treaty left off.

The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 was adopted in October 2010 by the 10th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD). The Aichi Biodiversity Targets (named after the Japanese prefecture hosting the meeting) were part of that treaty and represented an earlier effort to set meaningful targets for biodiversity conservation, ranging from protected areas, through local impacts to biodiversity and on to funding mechanisms.

While most of the targets were not achieved, progress was made in all areas. The Post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework aims to build on the earlier targets.

The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework – key points

The framework has four over-arching global goals

1. Maintaining the integrity and connectivity of ecosystems while reducing extinctions and safeguarding genetic diversity

2. Sustainably using, managing and restoring biodiversity and nature’s contribution to people, to support sustainable development by 2050

3. Ensuring the equitable sharing of the benefits of genetic resources, including protecting traditional knowledge

4. Making available adequate resources to implement the goals including finance, capacity building, technical and scientific cooperation and technology.

The specific targets cover a wide range of topics, including:

-          Area-based targets for protecting and restoring ecosystems

-          Reducing biodiversity loss

-          Addressing human impacts such as food waste, pollution and alien invasive species

-          Phasing out harmful subsidies

-          Mobilising capital and increasing financial flows.

Two themes emerged from the negotiations and the eventual treaty that I find particularly encouraging:

-          A greatly increased role in conservation for Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs).

We have long advocated for local communities to be more engaged in marine conservation here in Malaysia; the treaty and its various clauses puts IPLCs front and centre in the fight to conserve biodiversity, which is where they should be.

To IPLCs front and centre in the fight to conserve biodiversity

-          Also where they should be – the private sector.

For the first time, companies (specifically large and transnational companies) are required to identify their impacts on biodiversity. Hopefully this will generate momentum similar to that we have seen with companies taking action to reduce their climate exposure. Biodiversity’s next!!

But…

We have a treaty. But…it needs to be implemented.

There is a lack of clarity with some of the targets (30% of what?) that needs to be determined at national level by national agencies. We don’t have all the data we need. There are challenges ahead.

But for sure, we now have something of a roadmap. We look forward to working with local stakeholders to put detail onto that roadmap and making progress.

Malaysia is recognised as one of the 12 “mega-biodiverse countries” in the world. We need to protect our natural capital. Maybe this sounds like hyperbole…but it’s our future we are protecting.

How? I will look at what RCM considers some of the more important targets for marine conservation over the coming weeks and months.