The Great Transformation? Or will greed once again engulf us?

Anil Netto

Close encounters 

Over the past year of full and partial lockdowns, one of the few pleasures in my life in Penang, in northern Malaysia, was to stroll along the seafront promenade, lined by casuarina trees, a couple of miles from my home. Maybe it was because of the reduced pollution but the air seemed crisper and more fresh, and the view across the calm Penang channel looked sharper. The haze-free blue skies above the misty jungle-clad hills on the island added to the visual feast. Even the fellow strollers seemed friendlier as they soaked in the sights.  

Then something started happening. My eyes were drawn to creatures I had not noticed before. First, it was the stationary little egrets perched on small rocks at the water’s edge, looking on as the tiniest of waves crawled to the shore. Up on the casuarina trees, the odd crow cawed at its counterparts on other trees, who duly responded. On another morning, I noticed a couple of people on the promenade gazing into the sea. Following their line of sight, I spotted about eight creatures leisurely swimming the length of the coast, their oval heads popping in and out of the water, presumably looking for breakfast. One of them gripped a little fish in its mouth. As I started filming this, a woman in a headscarf could barely contain her excitement: ‘It looks almost like anjing laut (sea dogs)!’ Not quite. I later learned that these were actually smooth-coated otters, sighted only rarely in Penang.  

On other occasions, groups of men, chest-deep in the still sea, combed the seabed looking for siput mentarang (angelwing clams). Bobbing around them were half-cut-out blue plastic drums floating on the seawater like wide little vessels, on which the men placed their catch. Further away in the tranquil sea, resembling a vast lake, a few fishing boats floated motionless on the still waters, each with about four men, who cast their nets and sorted the catch. These fisherfolk have had to move towards the northern end of the channel as their traditional waters grew muddier and polluted from human activity. Much further north of the channel, towards the Andaman Sea, the peak in neighbouring Kedah state (Kadaram as it was known in south India) is faintly visible. A couple of millennia ago, seafarers from the west, crossing the Bay of Bengal, used this as their landmark, as they settled around the foothills of Gunung (Mount) Jerai and established an entrepot midway along a maritime silk route. 

Closer to my home in Penang, as the lockdowns quietened traffic, other creatures emerged. A pointed-beaked grey bird would perch itself on the overhead power cable that crossed the street to our house. By 5.30pm every day, this kingfisher had assumed its place as if surveying its kingdom and bidding farewell to the fading day. Within our little garden, hidden within plant foliage, a bird’s nest appeared with a couple of eggs of a species I could not identify. The eggs hatched and the two little hatchlings grew to maturity in a couple of weeks. They soon stumbled out of the nest, before they could even fly steadily. Sadly, their chances of survival could not have been high, considering the neighbourhood cats prowling around.

One afternoon, from my study, I heard some shouting downstairs. I soon found out the source of the consternation. Nature had encroached into our wet kitchen. A fat creature that looked like a little ‘gator, almost five feet long, from forked tongue to tail, was struggling to emerge from the outlet of a narrow drainpipe, its body stuck halfway. My quick online search told me this was an Asian monitor lizard. It stood motionless between two worlds – and I wondered if it was dead or alive. The local civil defence department dispatched a rescue team who arrived shortly after. By then, the intuitive monitor lizard had somehow wrenched itself out and slithered to freedom, the only trace of it, a potted plant it had toppled.  

These lockdown encounters gave me a new appreciation of the natural world. I had grown up in these parts, and yes, I liked living within walking distance of the sea. But it was only after the pandemic struck that I grew more attuned to the natural world peeking out. 

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From fishing villages to condo towers 

Fishing has long been a traditional source of livelihood in Penang (which means areca nut). It was out of these fishing villages and farmlands that the urban spaces of Penang emerged with the arrival of the East India Company in 1786. Before Captain Francis Light ‘founded’ a British settlement on Penang Island, a few settlements or fishing kampongs had already dotted Penang Island and the mainland. The British then acquired a mainland strip from Kedah 14 years later to provide a protective barrier against potential invaders eyeing the Pearl of the Orient.  

Light had acquired Penang Island from the sultan of Kedah state in exchange for a promise to ward off a threat to Kedah from Siam. Light and his successors as colonial governors rapidly turned the state into a thriving entrepot on the back of the labour of the natives of the region and early settlers from India, China and beyond. It became a colonial cultural melting pot promoting a new kind of economic development focused on the trade of commodities. Two centuries later, when unemployment hit Penang, the state switched to export-oriented industrialisation to drive the economy. 

With the turn of the 21st Century, as people’s incomes grew, George Town, the capital, was declared a Unesco world heritage site for its living cultural heritage. Developers and ‘hot money’ quickly cashed in on land-scarce Penang. As a speculative real estate frenzy gripped the island, foreigners snapped up high-end condominiums and heritage property, while Penang turned into a paradise of sorts for foreign retirees and the well-heeled.  

Even though buyers could not keep up, developers searched for new land to build more blocks. They built condo blocks packed together and the towers grew taller; first 20, then 40, now 60 storeys high. Some of the developers eyed land on the landslide-prone slopes of the north-south spine of Penang Island. Others looked beyond the coast – at the sea – with dollar signs in their eyes. 

Enter land reclamation.  

Over the years, the outline of Penang Island has changed from a cute turtle to a deformed creature. First, it was over 350 acres of coastal reclamation in the northeast, and an additional 750-acre island. But even that pales in comparison to the plans for the southern coast. The state government accepted a proposal from developers to reclaim 4,500 acres of land to create three artificial islands in the south. Sales of this new land purportedly would raise funds to build expensive transport infrastructure: a single 10 billion ringgit (US$2.4bn) elevated light rail line from the George Town city centre to the three fake islands in the south and an RM9bn six-lane highway that would tunnel in and out of the ecologically sensitive hill spine of Penang Island.  

There are a couple of problems with the plan to reclaim the three islands. The fake islands would sit smack in the middle of the last major fishing waters of Penang, now teeming with marine biodiversity. So rich is the fish catch at the proposed site that local fishers have dubbed it Kawasan Mas (a golden area). Just recently, as if sounding the alarm on the impending reclamation, humpback dolphins were filmed frolicking in the turquoise waters of this golden area.  

Additionally? It is not as if the state will be hard-pressed for land, housing, and industrial development in the future. Industrial land is cheaper on mainland Penang and in neighbouring states, than it is on Penang Island and the proposed three artificial islands. Some suspect greed for real estate profits is the real driving force behind the high-density mega-reclamation projects in Penang. Ah, greed in the era of capitalism and neoliberal globalisation. What else is new? 

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A great philosopher comes a-calling 

Few in Penang are aware that the Indian Nobel laureate for literature, Rabindranath Tagore, visited colonial-ruled Penang a few times between 1916 and 1929, during his voyages to the East, when he would have been in his fifties and sixties. Tagore felt compelled to promote an Asian universalism, a spiritual bonding of sorts. He saw this as a genuine alternative in an era driven by the crass greed of colonialism on the one hand and materialist radical nationalists on the other.

During one of his voyages to Penang, Tagore reflected on the beauty of the natural world. But upon his arrival, while surveying the bustling activity at Penang port, the poet-philosopher could not help but reflect on the greed that plagues humanity. 

 ‘The trouble begins when petty man begins to purloin the ingredients to create great man. When the infinite power of human desire starts to course down a narrow channel, it breaks its banks and creates a flood of destruction...If humanity dies out on earth, it will die out for this reason: it learnt the truth but not the application of truth. It obtained the power of the gods but not the divinity.’ 

Seven decades earlier, long before people had even heard of climate change, Scotsman James Richardson Logan – the man who coined the term ‘Indonesia’ and who now lies buried in Penang – warned of the impact of deforestation on the climate. Writing in the Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia in 1848, Logan observed,

‘The great extent to which the plain of the mainland of Pnang (sic) has been shorn of its forest would of itself produce an urgent necessity for a stop being at once put to a war with nature, which must entail severe calamaties (sic) on the future. In those mountains of Greece which have been deprived of their forests, the springs have disappeared. In other parts of the globe, the same consequence has followed. The sultry atmosphere and dreadful droughts of the Cape de Verde Islands are owing to the destruction of forests.’

Today, others are sounding the alarm about the impact of land reclamation on climate change. The reclamation in south of Penang is expected to emit 3.2 million tonnes of carbon emissions annually. That would require a staggering 147 million trees to offset, one environmentalist pointed out. Logan’s words were prophetic; but as temperatures in Penang climb, it is clear his words have not been heeded. 

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Ground zero – south of Penang Island 

During the initial Covid lockdown in March 2020, the fisherfolk in the south of Penang Island were actually catching more fish than before. The lockdown forced economic activity to slow and thus improved seawater quality. The stock of fish feed – the plankton in the mudflats along the coast – increased, allowing more fish, crabs and prawns to breed in the waters at ground zero of the proposed mega-reclamation project.

The coastal fisherfolk here are artisans, skilled at using drift nets on small skiffs with low horse-power in the long, sheltered cove. Zakaria Ismail’s closely cropped white hair and beard, weather-beaten face and sunken eyes along with a soft genial voice lend him the aura of a spiritual sage. At 64, he has clocked 44 years at sea. Now, as head of the Sungai Batu fishing unit along the southern coast of Penang Island, he knows what’s at stake. Zakaria’s boat is just 17 feet long and uses only a 15-horse-power engine, allowing him to venture out a couple of nautical miles. The sea is mostly calm and the waves gentle. Some 400 boat owners operate in this area out of the 2,000 vessels in the whole of Penang.  

There’s a lift in Zakaria’s voice today, ‘The catch of ikan kembung (Indian mackerel) has been encouraging, drawing fishers from well beyond the southern coast,’ he beams. That’s thanks to the rainy weather of late. 

Other fish that are wild and caught here include bawal (pomfret) and senangin (threadfin). Some fishers lay bubu (traps) near small rocks and coral reefs to snare grouper fish and jenahak (snapper). Prawns – large ones as well as smaller white and grey-white species – are local favourites, especially for Lunar New Year reunion dinners, along with crabs and squid. 

The rainy weather may have drawn more fishers to the area looking for kembung, but for how much longer? For now, the fisherfolk take home an average of RM3,000 ($730) per month – enough to put food on the table and keep them safely above the real poverty line. But they face an uncertain future, ‘To me, the reclamation will destroy the ecosystem. Indirectly, the fishers’ incomes will drop,’ Zarakia’s voice falters. ‘I feel PSR (the Penang South Reclamation project) should be cancelled to ensure food security. If not, the fisherfolk’s livelihoods will be wiped out and there won’t be any more fresh fish and prawns.’ 

The state government says it will mitigate the impact of the reclamation by building a new fishing jetty and providing education aid, employment opportunities and some compensation. But most of the fishermen are against the project and have lodged an appeal against the environmental impact assessment that was approved with 72 conditions. It is not just about the loss of livelihoods and the erosion of Penang’s food security. There’s also the matter of sand mining from the seabed off the coast of Perak state, just south of Penang, which is expected to hurt another 4,500 coastal fisherfolk in Perak and Kedah. Almost 190 million cubic metres of rocks and sand will be required as landfill for the reclamation.  

Developers appear eager to kickstart the reclamation and make up for lost time, Covid or no Covid. And not just at ground zero in Penang. Now other states have gotten into the act. Large areas have been earmarked for reclamation along the west coast of Peninsula Malaysia from Langkawi in the north to Malacca and Johor in the south.  

In his 1928 essay ‘City and Village,’ Tagore wrote of the symbiotic relationship between urban centres and settlements in the periphery, which would be damaged if greed took hold: ‘In the modern age the machine has not only multiplied working capacity but also the hunger for gain and the scale of profit. That is why there is disharmony between the interest of the individual and the community, leading ultimately to conflict.  

‘Greed severs the relations between town and village. The town has become a drain on the village because it has ceased to make its contribution to the village. The artificial lights of the town are ablaze – lights that have no connection with sun, moon or star – but the humble lamps of the village are dead.’ 

That urban greed has now reached a new level, threatening to swamp the periphery and even swallow the sea – the commons – and along with it the source of livelihoods for the fisherfolk and food security for the people. The ‘Great Transformation’ seemed like a  mindset towards more sustainable living in harmony with nature, as the silver lining that some hoped would materialise in a post-pandemic world. Much will depend on the young people of today, more of whom appear to have grown ecologically conscious. Here’s hoping that new consciousness spreads quickly enough to save the humble lights of ancient fishing settlements from being extinguished.