Malaysian<\/a> Borneo were simply assumed to be among the finest on Earth. Now it is one of the first things visitors ask \u2013 and the answer, according to a new environmental report, has never been more uncertain.<\/p>\n\u201cVisitors increasingly ask about reef health, coral bleaching, marine protection and sustainability before they even make a booking,\u201d said Swann, the director of marine tour agency Downbelow.<\/p>\n
Sabah sits at the heart of the Coral Triangle, the most biodiverse marine region on the planet, hosting more than 76 per cent of the world\u2019s coral species and fisheries that feed millions across Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n
Yet a first-of-its-kind report by environmental watchdog RimbaWatch has found that 86.8 per cent of Malaysia\u2019s sensitive marine environments lie within oil production areas.<\/p>\n
Released on June 8, the report maps active and proposed offshore oil and gas blocks against coral reefs, marine protected areas and the broader Sulu-Sulawesi Ecoregion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every booking inquiry that lands in dive operator Richard Swann\u2019s inbox these days carries the same undertow of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[362994,362996,362993,64,63,362997,59802,363000,75,362999,362992,162995,935,362995,359117,108233,362998,90364,128],"class_list":["post-759844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-adam-farhan","tag-alnie-demoral","tag-anj-dacanay","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-coral-triangle","tag-ember","tag-energy-shift-southeast-asia","tag-environment","tag-john-kerry","tag-julian-hyde","tag-kota-kinabalu","tag-malaysia","tag-mombasa","tag-our-ocean-conference","tag-petronas","tag-rimbawatch","tag-sabah","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=759844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}