Penang Environmental Agenda

1
Penang Environmental Agenda

• Leong Yueh Kwong
• Malaysian Nature Society

2
Introduction

• Penangs environmental problems are well known
  and well published in the media over the last 25
  years
• Still a major concern judging by the entries in
  PenangWatch.net with environment after public
  transport and local government
• Concerns include
• hill cutting
• Land reclamation
• Water pollution
• Air pollution
• Inappropriate development, etc

3
From environmental protection to sustainable
development

• A paradigm shift from environmental conservation
  and protection to sustainable development
• Shift as a result of the Earth Summit in Rio 1992
• Environmental issues all subsumed under Agenda
  21- national and local
• Sustainability becomes underlying framework to
  view environmental issues

4
Studies done on Penangs environment

• Quite a large number of studies by USM on water,
  air and noise pollution
• Monitoring of air quality, water quality by DOE
• Flooding and mitigation by DID
• Structure Plan 1980s
• Penang Environmental Conservation Strategy 1999
• Penang Strategic Development Plan 2 (2001-2010)

5
Penang Environmental Conservation Strategy (PECS)

• Comprehensive study commissioned by the Penang
  State Government with inputs from 15
  environmental specialists
• Identified all major environmental problems in
  Penang
• Recommended strategies to resolve the problems
• Proposed action programs for the strategies
• Identified departments, agencies and institutions
  that would be involved
• Proposed institutional arrangements to undertake
  the action programs

6
Scope of PECS

• Land use and integrated planning
• Land use plan
• Hill land conservation
• Land reclamation
• Conservation and management of natural resources
• Water
• Forest
• Biological diversity
• Marine resources

7
Scope of PECS .contd

• Urban environment issues
• Urbanization and human settlements
• Waste management
• Industrial pollution
• Environmental health
• Infrastructure development
• Transport
• Energy use
• Gardens, parks and open spaces

8
Coastal zone management

• Coastal land reclamation
• Tanjung Tokong land reclamation
• Privatized
• 5 more islands to be reclaimed
• Impacts on Gurney drive and Penang port
• Sedimentation
• Shallowing of port
• Increased sedimentaion and water quality
• Jelutong land reclamation
• Privatized
• Impacts on straits of Penang
• Loss of linear park

9
Coastal zone management

• Closing of beaches and coastal waters to Penang
  public and the issue of public access to beaches
  and coastal waters
• Hotels and high rise condos in beach front and
  loss of aesthetic value
• Carrying capacity of coastal zone exceeded? Over
  building and violation of development control
  guidelines
• Hill cutting along Batu Feringhii and
  sedimentation of coastal waters
• Infrastructure inadequacy and traffic bottlenecks

10
Hill cutting and development

• Legal and illegal hill cutting
• Construction of illegal roads up the hills
• Hill farms and soil erosion and abandonment as
  practice not sustainable
• Development in hill slopes
• Landslides and land slips in Paya Terubong
• Water catchments and diversion of water to farms
  and other use
• Drying up of waterfalls and streams

11
Public open space

• Penang has very limited public open space
• Federal Town and Country Department recommends 6
  to 7 acres per 1000 population
• Penang Island Structure Plan recommends 8
  hectares per 5000
• MPPP requires only 2 hectares per 5,000
• Urgent need when 90 of new residential units are
  high rise and small for medium and low cost
  housing

12
Requirements for public open space

• Projected population of Penang in 2010
• 1,647,000
• Public space requirements based on 4 ha per 2500
  population
• 1 ha neighborhood parks
• 1 ha town park
• 1 ha community park
• 1 ha regional park
• Penang requires 2635 ha of public open space
• Available space in Penang Island and Sebarang
  Perai in 2000 is 449 ha

13
How to find the space?

• Acquire land
• Expensive option
• Allocate existing land
• Need political will
• Land reclamation
• 30 for public recreation
• Linear coastal parks

14
Next Steps

• Action required
• Working group on each issue
• Hill development
• Coastal zone development and land reclamation
• Pollution
• Tree planting and greening of urban areas
• Conservation of nature
• Public open space
• Etc, etc
• Issues to be determined by the participants here
• Institutional mechanisms for implementation