Lankayan Island

Lankayan Island is a tropical resort island in the Sulu Sea of Malaysia, Sandakan and 15km from Sabah. [http://www.starfish.ch/dive/Lankayan.html Diving in Lankayan, Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia: dive sites, how to get there, photos (Zubi) ] ] Lankayan Island has many species of attractive flora and fauna. [http://www.diveborneo.com/locations/Lankayan.htm Lankayan Island - Dive Borneo ] ] The only resort on the island, Lankayan Island Dive Resort, was built in 1997 [http://allmalaysia.info/news/attraction.asp?id=730&pt=1 All Malaysia.info ] ] . Divers are attracted by myriad macro marine life, coral and sunken wrecks. Lankayan Island is known for its whale shark sightings.

The fauna that inhabit the waters of the island include scads, yellow tail barracudas, and jacks. Other fauna include claw anemone fishes, decorator and spider crabs, coral shrimps, nudibranchs, prawn gobies, seahorses, ghost pipefish, flying gurnards, parrotfishes, rays and guitarfish. The indigenous plants include casuarina trees and pandan screwpine. [http://lankayan-island.com/ About Lankayan ] ]

On 13 October 2003 Lankayan Island was declared part of the Sugud Islands Marine Conservation Area (SIMCA). As part of SIMCA, all resource harvesting (fishing etc.) will be prohibited by the state government of Sabah, Malaysia.

External links

* [http://divehappy.com/borneo/lankayan-borneo-paradise-under-threat/ Lankayan: Paradise Under Threat] Divehappy.com report on Lankayan's marine conservation efforts (June 2006)

References