Marine life in the Malaysian state of Sabah has long been under threat by ruthless fishermen who use the technique of ‘blast fishing’ to indiscriminately destroy plant and animal life underwater.

A new groundbreaking technology to detect blast fishing activities in real time is showing promise in efforts to protect Sabah’s marine life.

A non-governmental organisation is looking to solve Sabah’s perennial fish bombing issues with ground-breaking technology that can detect blasts underwater in real time.

A six-year old boy was killed when a fish bomb detonated while an 11-member Sea Gypsy family was constructing it at a stilt house off Pulau Bum Bum near Semporna.

Tougher, harsher and mandatory sentences for environment-related offences are making their way through the legal system; that could send a person to jail for even discarding litter out of the car window.

Blast fishing is one of the most destructive fishing techniques currently in practice.

Jessica Vyvyan-Robinson was diving off Borneo when she was struck without warning by shock waves.

Recently, while leading a dive off the coast of Kota Kinabalu, Borneo, I had my first encounter with the unethical and destructive practice of dynamite fishing.

Abdul Karim Laing used to be a bomb fisherman. “I started in 1990,” he explains. “My friend was catching a lot of fish – it turned out he was using dynamite and he taught me. I got good at it.”

In the midst of yet another reported fish contamination scandal in Hong Kong last week, a frightening scenario was suggested by physicist George Woodman: what if the voracious fish eaters of Hong Kong and the mainland decided the only way they could safeguard their health from the continuous fish contamination scares was to switch from farmed seafood to the cheaper ‘bombed’ version?