Gaya Island
Gaya Island is a sizeable island located in the West Coast Division of Kota Kinabalu District, Sabah in the South China Sea in Malaysia. With a size of, the island forms part of the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park with an elevation of up to. Several ridges rise more than, peaking at, along the backbone of the island.
Historically, Gaya Island was the settlement harbour of the British North [Borneo Chartered Company]. Faced with various problems with the lack of streams and rivers, infertile soils, and the island position sheltered from winds, Gaya did not flourish as expected and was further razed to the ground by local resistance leader Mat Salleh during a rebellion on 9 July 1897 and never thereafter rebuilt. It has been gazetted as a forest reserve since 1923, during the administration of British North Borneo. In 1974, the TARP became Sabah's second national park gazetted after the Kinabalu Park. Gaya is the largest island gazetted within the TARP, is closest to the state capital and is covered with dense virgin tropical forest.
The island has of hiking trails and three five-star resorts named Gayana Marine Resort, home to the Marine Ecology Research Centre; the neighbouring Gaya Island Resort ; and the Bunga Raya Island Resort on the northeast part of the island. The island is known as a paradise for snorkellers, and divers while also offering paddleboarding, zip lining and guided treks on its lush forests. In the 2010s, there has been a plan to turn Gaya Island into a city island and tourism hub. A cable car line has also been proposed before to connect with the city centre. In 2024, the island has an estimated population of 30,000, with only 1,000 belonging to the original island inhabitants, while the rest were illegal immigrants arriving in the 1970s.
Etymology
Gaya Island derived its name from the word "gayo", which means "big" in the Kadazan-Dusun, as well as "goyoh" in the Bajau languages. According to J. H. Macartney, a former local British Secretary for the Local Government in North Borneo, the name "gaya" comes from the local Bajau word "goyoh", which is translated as "big" in English. Therefore, Gaya Island literally translates as "Big Island" by the British. The island soil is described as bright red clay.History
As with most islands in northern Borneo, Gaya Island was once under the thalassocracy of the Sultanate of Brunei. In 1765, British navigator Thomas Forrest, serving under the East India Company, made a survey on the island. On 29 December 1877, Sultan Abdul Momin of Brunei made a cession and conferred the title of "Maharaja of Gaya and Sandakan" to German adventurer, businessman and diplomat Baron von Overbeck, and the following year, on 22 January 1878, Sultan Jamal ul-Azam of Sulu also made a cession and conferred the title of "Dato Bendahara and Raja of Sandakan" to him. This resulted in Overbeck having the authority over the area in northern Borneo, from Kimanis to Sibuku Bay, as well as islands such as Gaya Island, Ambong Island and Marudu. When Overbeck left, all rights were passed into British colonial merchant and entrepreneur Alfred Dent, who later formed the North Borneo Chartered Company.British acquisition
The foundation of Gaya Island as an early trading settlement is associated with the foundation of the town of Jesselton. Before the Europeans' arrival, the island was inhabited by the local Bajau people. In 1882, the NBCC set up an early British trading settlement on the island with the focus on the development of infrastructure for it to become the central administration of North Borneo as well as the collection site for raw materials gathered from the western coast. Therefore, NBCC provided various infrastructure facilities such as administrative buildings, jetty warehouses, rows of shops and housing areas based on non-permanent materials such as nibong and rumbia roofs. Based on the book of "Exploration of Mount Kina Balu, North Borneo" by English explorer and naturalist John Whitehead in 1893, he summarised the condition of the island infrastructure as follows:The NBCC settlement on the island did not last longer than expected as a result of various problems such as extremely hot temperatures, shallow waters, difficulty in obtaining clean water resources and destruction caused by Mat Salleh's rebellion in 1897. This situation caused the British to start looking for a new settlement area to replace the island's role as the administrative centre and port for the western coast of North Borneo. As a result, Gantian was deemed a suitable location but due to its mangrove swamps that made it difficult to build a Western [Sabah Railway Line|railway system] and difficult shipping routes with declining trade, mainland Jesselton was founded in 1899 as the most suitable replacement of Gaya Island, named in honour of Charles Jessel, a manager of the NBCC.
Post-war and present history
Throughout World War II, the island was spared from destruction, and until the formation of the Malaysian federation, the island administration was passed down by the British to Sabah and subsequently under Malaysian sovereignty. In 1974, the major part of Gaya and Sapi islands was gazetted as TARP, covering an area of. In 1979, the park was increased to with the inclusion of the three nearby islands of Manukan, Mamutik and Sulug. The park is spread over, two-thirds of which cover the sea. In present days, the park is managed by Sabah Parks, with many of its areas classified under protected areas; this includes sites for educational nature trails, nature and wildlife conservation and proboscis monkey preservation through the Gaya Island Resort Wildlife Centre. The Gaya Island Resort Marine Centre, meanwhile, advocates for coral reef restoration, turtle rescue, and conservation through education. Starting from the 2010s, there have been proposals to develop the island as the city tourism hub with the construction of facilities such as cable cars, a police base and the resettlement of the refugee inhabitants.1970s illegal settlement
Starting in the 1970s, Filipino-Moro refugees comprising Tausūg and Bajau peoples began to inhabit the island in their bid to escape from the war in the southern Philippines. Their massive presence started throughout the administration of the Muslim-led United Sabah National Organisation of Mustapha Harun. Despite this legacy, until present, neither the Malaysian federal government nor the Sabah state government officially recognises the settlement and the inhabitants, as they are known as illegal immigrants. The eastern shore of Gaya Island supports a well-known illegal Filipino colony, called Kampung Lok Urai, with stilt houses girdling the beach as far as the eye can see. It has a large floating population of largely Muslim Filipinos who provide the capital city of Kota Kinabalu with a source of cheap labour. It is considered a dangerous, high-crime or "no-go" area by both the police and Sabahan locals. The stilt houses are linked by walkways of weathered planks. As the population grew, new houses spread seaward, with no regard for sanitation. The population on the island have also been criticised for their rubbish-throwing attitude, where most of the rubbish will be found floating around the sea near their settlements. Three fires in 1994, 1998 and 2014 have wiped out nearly half of Pondo Village.The Sabah state government has since been working to end the Filipino squatter problems that have become the main cause for rampant crimes, terrorism and drug trafficking in the state, especially in Kota Kinabalu, as their location is too close to business areas, by relocating these squatters to a proper place for proper management, while many of the problematic, illegal immigrants will be deported back to the Philippines and their further entry will be prevented. After the fire in Pondo Village in 2014, the Sabah state government has proposed to move the illegal immigrants on the island to Kinarut with a better facility of modern houses. This proposal has been vehemently opposed by Sabahan citizens, including some demands addressed to the Chief Minister at the time, Musa Aman, to resign for mishandling his power. In late 2016, the state government submitted recommendations to the Malaysian federal government through the Main Committee on Management of Foreigners to move any refugee placement schemes in the state to other more suitable locations far from the towns and industrial development areas. The squatters' relocation is in line with the Kota Kinabalu metropolitan development to turn Gaya Island into a city island and tourism hub. In 2024, Chief Minister Hajiji Noor urged for an immediate relocation of the island residents to the mainland to allow the island to be transformed into a tourist destination, by which the early original island inhabitants of West Coast Bajaus and Ubian, supported by indigenous Kadazan-Dusuns member of parliament Marcus Mojigoh, would distance the original inhabitants from the illegal immigrants by opposing the relocation plan from their ancestral lands.
Geography
The island is situated off the western coast of northern Borneo, opposite the city of Kota Kinabalu and the Likas residential and commercial district, the former Likas Plain. Its geographical characteristic is a hilly, forested island with coral reefs, mangrove forests, and beaches. With a size of, it is the largest island within the Tunku Abdul Rahman Park. Before the Ice Age, the islands of the present TARP, including Gaya, formed part of the Crocker Range formation, consisting of a mass of sandstone and sedimentary rock on the mainland of northern Borneo. Around a million years ago, the melting ice brought about changes in the sea level, and parts of the mainland were cut off by the sea to form the five islands of Gaya, Sapi, Manukan, Mamutik, and Sulug, which can be seen from the exposed sandstone of the coastline forming the cliffs, caves, honeycombs, and deep crevices. The highest point on the island is located in the centre, the Gaya Island High Point, at a height of.It features a high biodiversity, with mammal species such as the red giant flying squirrel, proboscis monkey, long-tailed macaque, Sunda pangolin, Bornean wild boar, and reptile such as monitor lizards. The island also became the home for several bird species, such as the oriental pied hornbill, the collared kingfisher, and the rare Philippine megapode. The surrounding waters feature a variety of fish species, such as the black-blotched porcupinefish and two-lined monocle bream, along with various corals, crustaceans, and seagrass.