Nestled deep in the Coral Triangle are the islands of Semporna like green gems in a turquoise setting. The islands are geographically diverse but not nearly so diverse as the marine life at their edges. Many are coral and some are chunks broken away from the world’s 3rd largest island of Borneo. One, the island of Pulau Sipadan, is the only oceanic island in the region, cresting from the ocean floor 2,000 ft below. The jewel of the Semporna islands, colorful coral reefs edge Sipadan, and steep walls sprout sea fans and schools of pelagic fish including large rays and scalloped hammerhead sharks and whale sharks. Sipadan Island has frequently been cited as one of the top dive destinations in the world.
More than 3,000 species of fish and over 500 hundred species of coral have been described here. Green and hawksbill turtles mate and nest at the island, large schools of barracuda and big-eye trevally block the sun, and the strange looking bumphead parrotfish calmly graze the coral in herds like beaked cows. The deep water and strong currents bring in water rich with plankton and larvae providing abundant food and nurturing an abundance and species rare or unseen on other islands. Migratory seabirds use the island to nest and forage, and the island was first declared a bird Sanctuary by the British in 1931.
Located in the Celebes Sea off the east coast of Malaysian Borneo, the Semporna Islands including Sipadan are in the state of Sabah. In his 1965 film, Jacques Cousteau said "I have seen other places like Sipadan, 45 years ago, but now no more. Now we have found an untouched piece of art." Not quite pristine even at that time, Cousteau’s claim can longer be made, although the undersea world of Sipadan is still an awe inspiring piece of natural art. Some of the most exciting diving is plunging along the wall of the south drop off among large pelagic species of sharks. This region of the Coral Triangle has 64 species of sharks including great and scalloped hammerhead sharks and 68 species of rays such as eagle and mantas.
The exposure brought by Cousteau and media including dive magazines brought in a gold rush of divers and a building boom of resorts to the island in the 1980s. By 1990 Sipadan Island had 5 resorts serving thousands of dive tourists from all over the world. Inexperienced or careless divers overran the reef, damaging the coral. Untreated sewage proliferated algal growth and siltation covered and killed much of the shallow reef. The pristine reefs described by Cousteau were soon suffering.
A coral reef conservation officer with Britain's Marine Conservation Society monitoring Sipadan’s reefs reported an increased deterioration of the quality of Sipadan reefs as early as 1995. Alarmed by this decline, conservationists called for better management of Sipadan in the 90s, yet ownership of Sipadan remained under dispute by Malaysia and Indonesia. The Philippines also laid claim to the island and many of the seafaring tribal people in Semporna are related those living in the Mindanao region of Sulu in the southern Philippines.
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