Extra Mileage From Worn-Out Tires : Malaysia Building Condos for Fish

On a highway cutting through this city near Parliament is mountain of hundreds of old tires.

They are tossed into the Agriculture Ministry’s parking lot. Minister Sanusi Junid says they are being collected for artificial reefs to increase the fish population in the seas surrounding Peninsular Malaysia.

Similar piles can be seen in front of Fisheries Department offices in many parts of Peninsular Malaysia, where people are urged through appeals in the media to come dump them.

Deputy Agriculture Minister Alex Lee says the idea was launched in the mid-1970s and is gaining momentum. Because of intensified appeals through newspapers during the first nine months of this year 433,727 tires were collected. An agriculture ministry statement said 323,753 tires have been used so far.

Bahador Isa, the agriculture minister’s political secretary, says the tires collected are still far below the target of 1.4 million needed for the 53 sites along the coasts where the reefs are being built. Most of them are off the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia.

Sanusi says his ministry so far has not embarked on a study to assess the exact volume of fish being spawned in the artificial reefs.

“But feedback from fishermen has shown that there are more fish in the areas where the artificial reefs have been created,” Sanusi said.

He said studies conducted in Hawaii, the Virgin Islands, Bermuda and Florida had shown that areas surrounding artificial reefs produced 4,847 pounds of fish per hectare (about 2 acres) every year compared with 1,620 pounds per hectare around natural reefs.

Fisheries official Sbaiah Ahma said some workers were being trained as divers to check progress at the artificial reefs. The sites are areas where fishermen have reported declining fish populations, Sanusi said.

Sanusi said the 53 reefs now had 700 to 2,000 tires each, “but to be effective we need to upgrade each reef to 28,000 tires,” he added.

The reefs are build in areas where catches have declined by more than 50% since 1970. They are made by tying tires together in the form of a pyramid and allowing them to sink.

After six months, barnacles, layers of algae and other organisms stick to the tires, providing food and attracting the fish, said fisheries officials.

The sound of water passing through tires also attracts fish, which make the reefs their breeding grounds.

Sanusi said the government had allocated $1.50 million for the project for 1986 to 1990. He said that besides tires, the government had sunk more than 60 boats seized for illegal fishing and other activities to form artificial reefs.

“We are also testing the effectiveness of artificial concrete reefs,” Sanusi said.

Malaysia at present catches about $279.5 million in fish annually. It also imports about $143.76 million in fish, mainly from Thailand.