Recovery on Beting Bronok!

Our annual survey to this reefy northern flat is bitter-sweet. Like visiting our favourite grandma and watching her painfully, slowly fade away. I feel privileged to have seen her at her best.

Despite the ongoing reclamation works on Pulau Tekong nearby, and flaring at Penggerang Johor, it remains alive. Seagrasses remain abundant as much of the shore has become very soft and silty. The small patch rich with delicate colourful animals seems to have recovered from the mass dying we saw last year. 

Today, the team saw lots of interesting marine life including an explosion of tiny sea anemones. I will update with their observation later on.

There is small reefy patch on Beting Bronok that I call the 'sponge garden'.

The garden seems to have recovered! On our last survey in Jun 2024, there was mass dying of sponges in this are. It was relief to see that a wide variety of healthy sponges are back here, especially on the seaward side.

Unfortunately, as with last year when we didn't see any sea fans; today I only saw one. We saw many more sea fans yesterday at Pulau Ubin. There were also many small 'bouquets' of intertwined colourful sponges spinkled all across the flats. Hopefully, these will regenerate is more 'sponge gardens'.

Our last survey was in Jun 2024 at the height of mass coral bleaching. Beting Bronok was not spared. One thing 'good' about coral bleaching is that all the corals become very visible, and last year I saw about 40 coral. Practically 100% were bleaching. Today, as in the past, I saw only about 20 corals, all Boulder pore corals. About half were all right: brown and well formed. The rest were stressed or had large dead portions and even a bit of bleaching. I noticed many of the colonies were surrounded by stakes, not sure they are still being studied.

The most abundant cnidarian remains Button zoanthids which still cover large areas of the flat, very densely in some parts. They form thick mats with bare pebbly pools in between. The 2024 mass coral bleaching didn't seem to impact them, and they were all fine today. I looked out for some of organisms that grow among the zoanthids. These include some kind of pink ascidian, various seaweeds, some seagrass and some sponges - though it is possible that the zoanthids settled around the sponge

Seagrasses continue to grow on large areas of the southern tip of Beting Bronok. All Spoon seagrasses (with most large leaf blades but also some small) grow lush and fresh and green (no epiphytes). I have seen this since Jun 2018. Since ou last survey in Jun 2024, I noticed more of them in the lagoon in the middle of the reef flat. Today, there was an explosion of tiny Swimming anemones among the seagrasses on the southern tip. Almost every seagrass blade had one or more anemones stuck to it. We have observed this kind of explosion on most of our northern shores: from Changi to Chek Jawa. I also noticed that the anemones were not attaching to any of the seaweeds growing in the same area.

Over the years, I sense that Beting Bronok has gradually become larger. With 'new' soft silty areas growing on the south-west edge, where seagrasses have started to grow. Today, the 'stingray' lagoon to the north-west has become shallower. A look at Google Earth suggest this indeed in happening. 

Over the years, the reefy patch on Beting Bronok seems to wax and wane. Beting Bronok remains a pale shadow of itself. Here's what Beting Bronok looked like twenty years ago in 2003.

Beting Bronok in 2003.

Beting Bronok in 2003.

There used to be a wondrous variety of sea fans.

Sea fans on Beting Bronok in 2004.

Here's more old photos of marine life at Beting Bronok. Lost forever probably are the wonderful Sunflower mushroom corals and other corals that we used to see here.

Where is Beting Bronok? What is its status and future?

When the 2030 landuse plan by the Ministry of National Development was announced, it was also announced that Beting Bronok and Pulau Unum have been granted 'Nature Area' status. As I understand it, this status means the area "will be kept for as long as possible until required for development". Here's an earlier about 'Nature Area' status seem to mean.

To me, Beting Bronok seems to be in steady decline since the reclamation started at nearby Pulau Tekong. It has since also been affected by the flooding that led to mass deaths at Chek Jawa in 2007, and the coral bleaching in 2010 and a ferry ran aground on Beting Bronok in Jul 2011. Development of Pengerang Johor for a petrochemical complex that was rejected in Taiwan for environmental and health reasons can also impact Beting Bronok. Today, we started our survey before dawn. And throughout, there was massive flaring at petrochemical plants at Penggerang, Johor. This has been going on for years now. The oil leak from Langsat, Johor about 2 months ago probably didn't help - Changi and other shores in the East Johor Straits were impacted.

We will continue to keep watch over this special little reef and hope for the best.

Photos by others on this survey

Kelvin Yong


Richard Kuah

Jianlin Liu


Adriane Lee


Others on this survey: Che Cheng Neo, Tommy Tan, Vincent Choo, Dayna Cheah, Muhd Nasry, Isaac Goh, Amy Woon