Qualla: Tun Sakaran Marine Park

Tun Sakaran Marine Park: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia, CC BY 2.0. From the air, the islands of Tun Sakaran Marine Park look scattered across the Celebes Sea like pieces of a broken emerald. Eight of them, some forested, some barely more than sandbars, ringed by reefs that shift from turquoise to deep cobalt where the shallows drop away. Roughly 2,000 people live within this 350-square-kilometer park, most of them Bajau Laut, the people outsiders once called Sea Gypsies. Their stilt houses stand in the shallows, and their houseboats drift between the islands. A marine park, by definition, draws boundaries around a place. The Bajau Laut have lived here without boundaries for as long as anyone can remember.

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Image: Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia | CC BY 2.0

Tun Sakaran Marine Park: Eight Islands, One Park

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Sadalmelik, CC BY-SA 3.0. The park encompasses the islands of Bodgaya, Boheydulang, Sebangkat, and Salakan, the sand cays of Maiga, Sibuan, and Mantabuan, and the patch reefs of Church and Kapikan. Each island has its own character. Boheydulang, with its steep volcanic ridge, was originally gazetted as a ...

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Image: Sadalmelik | CC BY-SA 3.0

Tun Sakaran Marine Park: Decades in the Making

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia, CC BY 2.0. Conservation here started early but moved slowly. Bodgaya's forest reserve status dates to 1933, and proposals for a full state park were first floated in 1977. It took another two decades before serious collaboration began. In 1998, the Semporna Islands Project brought together ...

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Image: Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia | CC BY 2.0

Tun Sakaran Marine Park: The People Between the Reefs

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia, CC BY 2.0. The Bajau Laut who live within the park present a challenge that no conservation framework has fully resolved. These are among the last maritime nomads in Southeast Asia, a people whose traditional life was spent entirely on the water, moving between fishing grounds, trading post...

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Image: Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia | CC BY 2.0

Tun Sakaran Marine Park: A Living Laboratory

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia, CC BY 2.0. The waters of Tun Sakaran sit within the Coral Triangle, the global epicenter of marine biodiversity. Surveys have found extraordinary species richness here, with fish counts rivaling the highest recorded anywhere in the Philippines or Indonesia. The park's reefs support over 500...

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Image: Adznee Abas from Shah Alam, Malaysia | CC BY 2.0