Island Endemics and Tourism Development

What do a catfish and a tropical vacation on a remote island have in common? Most people might guess that a fancy fish dinner is the answer. From my experiences, those people would be wrong.

I spent this past summer traveling abroad to Singapore and Malaysia where I took part in a senior honor's course in Biodiversity. This course focused on a week of field work we completed on an island off the coast of Malaysia.While taking in all the cultural diversity and beauty of the garden city of Singapore, my fellow classmates from around the world and I devised a research project to discover more about the distribution, abundance, and habitat preferences of a species of catfish, Clarias batu, found only on our island destination of Pulau Tioman.

Clarius batu, also known as the Walking Catfish.

Pulau Tioman, courtesy of Google Maps.

C. batu  is a relatively new species, discovered in 1999, that can only be found in the low-land drainages in fast-flowing, rocky mesohabitats. A rare species with limited available habitat is one that may become extinct at the smallest environmental change. And unluckily for these fish and other rare species, P. Tioman-- with its tropical reefs and dense rainforest-- is quickly becoming an island destination for vacationing.

While the official website for the island (www.tioman.org) states that development is relatively low, I know from a second hand account that ten years ago, the island was almost completely unoccupied by humans. However, on my recent visit I found that resorts, taxis, and tourists abounded. I even saw construction taking place!

Active construction of a building only approximately fifteen minutes from the C. batu habitat.

Could this eminent development, however slow, spell trouble for C. batu and all the other island endemic species?

During my week of research, my research team and I examined two streams in a drainage on the west side of the island. We needed only to exit the resort walk for about fifteen minutes through the jungle to get to one of the streams that the catfish calls home. The other stream where the fish populations were more dense actually had a foot path that ran along it, which often brought us face-to-face with hiking tourists during our field work.

Images from the two streams sampled in the Sungei Paya Drainage on the west side of P. Tioman.

This species of fish, so precariously holding on to it's place in this world, could so easily lose its grip with the addition of a few larger hotels, an extension to the current resort, or even a much needed public service, like a water filtration plant that could raise the native's standard of living. What a conundrum for the rare species, found no where else on earth.

Some might argue that the amount of development needed to completely obliterate C. batu will never come to be. Others might say that this species is so similar to other Clarius species that it is of no significance anyway, or that human quality of life comes first.

I feel that the discovery of this new species is an exciting opportunity to learn more about evolution, biodiversity, and the prevention of extinction. I feel that everything possible should be done to protect this species (while still allowing the native occupation of the island and some ecotourism) and further research should be done to map out its habitat more clearly. However, I am sure that Malaysia does not have the strict environmental impact policies and protections that we have in California, and so the fate of this species and others like it may be entirely up to tourism and the free market.