Redefining Development and the Hidden Cost of Land Reclamation in Penang

The Seri Tanjung Pinang (STP) reclamation project at its second phase of construction, in a form of an island. It is located just off the reclaimed coast of STP first phase — licence infos

Placing a blanket definition of ‘development’ on any form of land creation, land-use change and resource exploitation without an informed understanding of the social and environmental cost, is to legitimize displacement and dispossession; and subsequently causing deeper inequality. The Ministry of Economic Affairs of Malaysia is making attempts to navigate away from this outcome by anchoring the country’s economic growth on social objectives.

The policy interventions in the 12th Malaysian Plan in 2020 will be driven by three development dimensions; namely economic empowerment, environmental sustainability and social re-engineering. While it is encouraging to see that the country is willing to move away from development defined from a purely economic frame of reference, it would take an unwavering political resolution for this egalitarian agenda to be materialised on the ground. 

Herein embedded a deep-seated concern, or rather a litmus test, on whether the ‘New Malaysia’ would fervently guard environmental sustainability - one of its three development dimensions in the 12th Malaysian Plan, given the nation’s tendency to remain on the conventional economic growth model.

Read the full article here: https://th.boell.org/en/2019/12/01/redefining-development-and-hidden-cost-land-reclamation-penang