Volunteers travel to isle to save abandoned dogs from hunger and thirst
Some of the stray dogs emerging from their hiding places to eat the food brought by the independent rescuers during their rescue visit to Pulau Gazumbo. — Photos courtesy of IAPWA
OVER the loud rumbling of the fishing boat engine, excited barking can be heard from Pulau Gazumbo, a small uninhabited island between Penang island and mainland.
Five beautiful dogs emerge from the shade, running all the way into the water to greet the visitors.
Alone and trapped on the island with no food resources or clean water, the dogs are skinny and completely reliant on the help of local fishermen who stop to drop off food about once in 20 days.
It is believed that in total, there are 13 canines – six matured and seven puppies – but how the dogs ended up on the tiny island remains a mystery.
News of the abandoned dogs reached the ears of independent animal rescuers about two weeks ago who decided that something needed to be done.
A litter of puppies captured by the rescuers from the uninhabited isle and being put up for adoption.
Requests to authorities faltered as officially, Pulau Gazumbo (believed to be an island created in the early 1980s during the construction of the first Penang Bridge either by the changing of currents or by excess building materials) is under no one’s jurisdiction.
“We have heard that the dogs have been there for more than six months and the puppies look to be about two months old, ” said animal activist David Yim.
Not wanting to delay help any longer, Yim engaged a fishing boat to bring a group of rescuers to the island last week.
“We were scheduled to go on Friday but unfortunately, the fishing boat broke down on Thursday night.
There are about four to five fishermen who help the dogs when they can.
On Saturday, some of them announced that they were free in the afternoon and went on their own to try and rescue the dogs.
They managed to bring six puppies back to Penang island, ” Yim told The Star.
Without any steady source of food or drinking water, abandoned dogs on Pulau Gazumbo are extremely thin. They are sometimes fed by passing fishermen.
Alerted of their arrival by Yim, Penang Island City Council (MBPP) councillor Connie Tan, who heads the council’s Stray and Abandoned Dog Sub-committee, sent officers to receive the dogs.
“Under a collaboration with the International Aid for the Protection & Welfare of Animals (IAPWA) Penang in 2017, MBPP conducts ‘TNR’, which means ‘Trap-Neuter-Release/Rehome’.
“We first take the dogs to our veterinary unit in Jalan Sungai and after they are checked, IAPWA takes them to be neutered and hopefully, rehomed, ” Tan said.
The six rescued puppies, which IAPWA estimates to be from six to eight weeks old, are currently up for adoption.
Tan said although the area was out of their jurisdiction, the council is aiding the rescue team with cages and tools to help them capture the remaining dogs.
Two of the rescued puppies now placed in a temporary home at the MBPP’s veterinary unit in Jalan Sungai.
Yim and a small team proceeded to Pulau Gazumbo on Sunday, lugging 40kg of kibble, over 14kg of canned food and 26 litres of drinking water for the trapped animals.
On the desert island, they discovered how hot conditions are despite the splattering of greenery that survives there.
They also learned something else – how fast a scared puppy can run.
“When you look at the island from Penang Bridge, it looks small.
“But when you are running after a puppy under the sun, the area feels very big, ” Yim said, adding that the team failed in their goal of capturing the last puppy.
Undaunted, the team is set to try again today, setting off from Karpal Singh Drive.
A rescuer pouring food on a plastic sheet to feed the dogs on the isle.A rescuer pouring food on a plastic sheet to feed the dogs on the isle.
“We need to go with the fishermen because the dogs are familiar with them.
“So far, we have managed to collect donations for the food that cost about RM1,200 which we estimate to be able to last about a month, if it doesn’t rain, ” Yim said.
He added that all the fishermen journeyed to the island at their own expenses out of their concern for the stray dogs.
“We don’t know how long it will take to capture all the dogs but our first priority is to rescue the last puppy and the mother dog.
“She is the only female dog on the island and it’s important to get her spayed, ” Yim said.
Information on how to sponsor vaccinations and neutering for stray and abandoned dogs can be found on IAPWA Penang’s Facebook page.
Your organisation may deserve an award but be aware of vanity awards disguised as legitimate prizes.
A vanity award is less of an honour because the recipient essentially has to fork out money for it. An organisation is asked to purchase the award by paying a high entry fee, sponsorship or other charges.
It is a business model that transcends borders and industries with US non-profit organisation Better Business Bureau issuing warnings about such schemes in the United States and Canada since 2008.
Even government bodies have been known to pay for vanity awards.
In 2017, The Star reported the Penang Municipal Council and Seberang Prai Municipal Council had revealed that they might have fallen for a vanity awards scheme by the Europe Business Assembly (EBA) in 2013 and 2014. (See related posts below)
Penang Island City Council mayor Datuk Maimunah Mohd said they won the EBA awards without assessment by any judges after paying a total of €7,800 (RM39,088) in entry fees.
The now retired Penang Island City Council (MBPP) mayor Datuk Patahiyah Ismail was awarded the Best Municipal Manager while the council was given the Best Municipality Award in 2013.
A year later, the Seberang Prai Municipal Council got the Best City award while its then president Datuk Maimunah Mohd Sharif was named the Best Municipal Manager.
Two European NGOs – the Center for Investigative Reporting of Serbia (CINS) and the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) – exposed the EBA titles as a vanity awards scam.
The report states that such organisations sent solicitation letters to companies and government agencies in the world, telling them that they had been nominated for various awards.
“Anyone who replies, shows interest and agrees to pay gets an award. Most of the letters contain the ceremony programme generally held in an attractive European capital, pictures of the trophies and information about costs,” the report added.
In 2011, The Star highlighted the proliferation of dubious awards due to high demand for such prizes.
The report said some organisers were giving out less-than-credible awards and then asking the “winners” to sponsor or buy dinner tables at lavish presentation events.
The asking price for such sponsorships ranged from RM4,000 to RM30,000, with some companies admitting they paid up for fear of business rivals getting the awards instead.
The organisers also banked on these companies’ need for recognition to boost their business. These companies treated such sponsorship as investments.
The Star reported that when demand for such awards increased, the “supply” can be raised simply by creating new categories.
Legitimacy of money-making awards ceremonies questioned
‘Honours’ list: Adeva giving a speech at its awards ceremony in Kuala Lumpur. Screencap from APTTF’s Facebook page.
Like most other people, leaders in the business world take pride in receiving recognition for their hard work and achievements. They also see value in being considered as among the best. These sentiments have helped spawn a lucrative mini industry built on award ceremonies that are more about earning money than honouring and encouraging excellence.
Businessmen have raised questions over the growing number of award programmes whose organisers demand payments from those who are supposedly nominated for prizes. The charges range from administrative fees to sponsorship.
Entrepreneur Jan Wong said he had been contacted by 10 different award organisers congratulating him on winning their awards but with one big condition.
“I was told that to qualify for the awards, I needed to pay for the nomination, a table (at the awards ceremony), marketing exposure or the trophy ,” said Wong, who was in Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in 2017.
“If I don’t want to pay, I won’t win,” he added. He questioned the prestige of such awards.
There are similar concerns about a recent travel industry awards ceremony in Malaysia by a little-known organisation called the Asia Pacific Tourism and Travel Federation (APTTF).
Participants said they had doubts about the Asia Pacific Tourism and Travel Awards after the event turned disorderly. The Tourism Minister did not show up although the organiser said he would. Some winners received the wrong awards, while several others were not given their awards that day.
“The chief executive officer’s explanation as to why they did not present our awards was that they had misplaced a box of trophies in the office,” participant Melissa (not her real name) said.
“When he was closing the event on stage he even asked if he had missed out any awards. But we were too polite to speak up.”Melissa said many award categories had five winners each. There was one category with about 30 winners, she added.
She said the event was supposed to be a prestigious gala dinner but it turned out to be a low-budget conference-style luncheon.
Participants paid RM575 to RM755 per seat or RM4,500 per table to attend the April 11 ceremony in a Kuala Lumpur hotel. There were about 200 award recipients.
In its promotional materials and conversations with participants, the APTTF claimed that Tourism Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines (MAS) had endorsed and supported the awards ceremony.
However, both organisations have denied any such affiliation.
“Malaysia Airlines is not associated, has not endorsed nor has any involvement with the APTTF,” MAS told The Star.
Tourism Malaysia said it is not a member of the federation and that the APTTF Malaysian Chapter is not a recognised travel association.
“The APTTF Malaysian Chapter is not registered with the Registrar of Societies and is not found in the Companies Commission of Malaysia’s MYDATA portal,” said Tourism Malaysia, adding that it had declined the invitation to attend the awards ceremony.
Further checks by The Star revealed that the website photo of the APTTF chairman is a stock image (an image provided by an agency that can be used for a fee).
The website also has the text of a speech by the chairman addressing the award winners. He has a Japanese name that does not show up elsewhere in an Internet search.
According to former APTTF employees, the people behind the Asia Pacific Tourism and Travel Awards had also organised the Asia Lifestyle Tourism Awards (ALTA) through an organisation called Asian Sports Group.
“My job was to call hotels all over South-East Asia to convince them to join the APTTF as a member. The hotels had to pay a fee and an award would be given when they joined,” said Jeff (not his real name).
“We actively name-dropped tourism ministries to convince the hotels and tour operators to sign up,” he said, adding that the organiser also operated under the name ASG Management Group Sdn Bhd
.
Sarah (not her real name) said she was tasked to organise ALTA 2018 which was supposed to be held in Shenzhen in September 2018. However, the event was cancelled although participants had purchased tickets to the event.
“The event didn’t happen because the company didn’t exist,” she said.
Thailand-based hotel operator Paisal Panchalad, who is among those affected by the cancellation of ALTA 2018, said the company did not reimburse the US$1,605 (RM6,638) he had paid despite multiple assurances from the CEO.
“CEO Adeva Sangkuni informed us that he would refund all money but he did not do that,” he said, adding that there were many others with the same complaint.
Sarah was not surprised that several winners of the KL awards ceremony last month did not receive their prizes. She said a similar thing happened in ALTA 2017, leading to a big hotel brand in Malaysia boycotting the organiser.
Sarah and Jeff said they suspected something was amiss with the company after discovering that many of the officials listed on the websites were fake.
The former employees claimed that the company did not pay their salaries during the one to two months that they worked there in mid-2018.
Last year, they lodged reports with the Companies Commission of Malaysia, Labour Department and the police against APTTF and ASG Management Group over the companies’ unregistered operations and the unpaid salaries
Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Ahmad Zakiyuddin Abdul Rahman, who is the
committee chairman, said the MBPP as the owner of the project had failed
in its overall responsibility to supervise the project despite having
appointed Jurutera Perunding GEA as representative of the superintendent
officer. NSTP/MIKAIL ONG
MBPP among four named as responsible in fatal Penang landslide
GEORGE TOWN: Four parties have been identified as being responsible for the fatal landslide at the construction site of the paired road at Jalan Bukit Kukus last October incident, including the Penang Island City Council (MBPP).
A special investigation committee set up by the Penang government following the fatal landslide at the construction site also named the other three parties, namely the contractor Yuta Maju Sdn Bhd, the consultant, Jurutera Perunding GEA (M) Sdn Bhd and the independent checking engineer G&P Professional Sdn Bhd.
Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Ahmad Zakiyuddin Abdul Rahman, who is the committee chairman, said the MBPP as the owner of the project had failed in its overall responsibility to supervise the project despite having appointed Jurutera Perunding GEA as representative of the superintendent officer.
“By appointing Jurutera Perunding GEA, it does not mean that the council is free from responsibilities to ensure the success of the project from all aspects.
"As such, any actions to be taken against the council will depend on the outcome of investigations by the police, the Department of Occupational Safety and Heath (DOSH) and the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) into the incident," he said when making public findings of the investigation committee.
Ahmad Zakiyuddin said as for Yuta Maju, it had failed to ensure satisfactory mitigation works at the project site, and that the temporary slope constructed at the project site was not endorsed or designed by accredited consultants, which was a violation of the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) guidelines.
“It also failed to ensure site safety by removing the empty containers at the project site, where nine bodies were recovered," he added.
As for Jurutera Perunding GEA, Ahmad Zakiyuddin said the party had failed to ensure that the contractor abide by the guidelines set out by the BEM, while G&P Professional had failed to abide by the job scope given by the council.
“Following our findings, we have recommended that the contractor, consultant and independent checking engineer be blacklisted from any tender consideration for projects in the future.
“That said, they will still have to continue their works for the paired road project, until the project completion, slated for May next year,” he added.
The landslide at the Bukit Kukus paired roads project site on Oct 19 last year killed nine site workers and left four others injured.
The search and rescue (SAR) operation was called off after five days. The project's stop-work orders, separately issued by DOSH, CIDB and the council, were lifted up recently.
Ahmad Zakiyuddin said the special investigation committee also identified 10 main factors which had contributed the to fatal landslide, particularly not fully adopting best practices in construction work.
Other factors included:
* heavy rain on the morning of the incident at 55mm
* the contractor was unable to enter the project site to carry out mitigation works as stop-work order was issued by DOSH two days prior to the incident following a worksite accident
* unsafe construction processes
* failure to recognise the significance of an earlier incident (falling beams at another part of the project site two days prior to the landslide);
* lack of supervision
* failure to identify risk due to the change of process
* lack of comprehensive inspection and testing
* failure in risk communication
* poor management of sub-contractors.
Asked on why the services of the contractor, consultant and independent checking engineer were not immediately terminated following the incident, Ahmad Zakiyuddin said from what he understood, the stop-work orders issued on the three were only for one part of the project and not the entire project.
"Also, there was no record of safety issues prior to the landslide," he said.
He called on efforts to protect the remaining part of the project as a resu
lt of a negative perception.
"Any delay will put the project at greater risks."
To another question if the special investigation committee's findings would be made public, he there had been no plans to do so as the report served as a guideline for the state. - By Audrey Dermawan, NST >
‘MBPP hired resident engineer for Bukit Kukus project’
GEORGE TOWN: The Penang Island City Council (MBPP) appointed a resident engineer and an independent checking engineer even before the start of the Bukit Kukus paired road project, says Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow.
“If you see the action taken by MBPP, they understand their technical insufficiency in terms of a geotechnical engineer. That’s why in the contract, they required the main contractor to appoint a resident engineer, who was paid by MBPP to monitor the project on MBPP’s behalf.
“The independent checking engineers were also paid by MBPP. So, it was a measure taken by MBPP even before the start of the project, knowing that this is a big project.
“They did not have the capacity to monitor the project as they have only two or three engineers who have to be looking at other matters besides this project.
“So, they took action to appoint a resident engineer as well as independent checking enginners to act on behalf of MBPP,” he told reporters at the Penang Development Corporation Chinese New Year celebration at the PDC office in Bayan Lepas yesterday.
Chow also said the state would wait for the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) report first.
“We will leave it to DOSH’s findings. Let DOSH come out with the report and we will take the necessary action after that,” he said.
Asked if MBPP had to bear necessary compensation for families of the victims of the landslide last October, Chow said MBPP had not received any claim so far.
Chow was asked to respond to the Consumers Association of Penang’s (CAP) call for stern action to be taken against the wrongdoers responsible for the tragedy.
CAP president S.M. Mohamed Idris in a statement yesterday said: “While we welcome the investigation committee’s findings as to who is responsible for the tragedy, we are concerned that apart from recommending the blacklisting of the contractor, consultant and independent checking engineer from any tender consideration for future projects, it appears that no further stern action has been recommended.
“In particular, we want to know what action will be taken against MBPP,” he said.
Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Ahmad Zakiyuddin Abdul Rahman, who headed the investigation panel, was reported yesterday as saying that MBPP and other parties involved in the construction of the Jalan Bukit Kukus paired road project had not adhered to construction and engineering best practices.
Meanwhile, MBPP acknowledged responsibility for the Bukit Kukus landslide tragedy as it is the council’s project.
MBPP mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang said the council was not pushing away any responsibility or negative comments on the council and project, and that it would be taken seriously. - By Cavina Lim and Intan Amalina Mohd Ali, The Star
Penang landslide report blames contractor, MBPP and DOSH
The special investigative panel report on the Bukit Kukus landslide had not been made public, but excerpts of the findings were made available by the state.
However, it has raised more questions than answers as the state blamed the contractor, Penang Island City Council (MBPP) and the Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH).
In an immediate response, DOSH Penang director Jaafar Leman denied the department was to be blamed for the landslide.
“We were not even invited to be part of the investigative panel to give our views. How could we be blamed?” he asked.
According to the statement by Deputy Chief Minister 1 Datuk Ahmad Zakiyuddin Abdul Rahman who headed the investigative panel, the stop-work order on Oct 17 prevented contractors from entering the site to do maintenance works.
As a result, the temporary toe drain overflowed and water was retained on the reclaimed land contributing to the collapse of the slopes.
“How could a stop order which was issued on Oct 17 contribute to the landslide which occurred on Oct 19?” asked Jaafar.
He said the slopes would have been risky from the beginning as the contractor did not do any mitigation works to strengthen them and it does not make sense to blame DOSH.
The stop-work order was issued on Oct 17 after 14 beams fell in a ravine.
Earlier, during a press conference, Ahmad Zakiyuddin said MBPP and other parties involved in the construction of the Jalan Bukit Kukus paired roads project, had not adhered to construction and engineering best practices.
“The landslide was caused by many factors, which included a temporary construction of a platform to place machinery which was not constructed properly. The temporary platform was created to allow heavy vehicles lift beams for the paired road project.
“MBPP, as owners of the project, had failed to ensure all the hired parties carried out their job.
“MBPP had failed to hire a professional engineer for temporary works to design and supervise the site,” he said yesterday.
Ahmad Zakiyuddin said another factor was the downpour in the morning of the day of the landslide.- The Star
Kudos to Deputy Chief Minister I Datuk Ahmad Zakiyuddin for holding the four parties accountable for the Bukit Kukus landslide
tragedy. The inquiry still begs a lot of questions, e.g. why was the
contract given to Yuta Maju from Terengganu? Could the accident have
been prevented if a proper EIA was done? It is not just a "bureaucratic
hurdle" but supposed to identify risks and advise mitigation. If the
authorities wish to go on with the project, it is not too late to
commissi... See more
“This
is no simple incident as nine deaths resulted from it. Very stern
action must be taken against the MBPP, and that includes strong
disciplinary action against the mayor and officers responsible.
“Otherwise, it will be business-as-usual in the MBPP as the officers will be allowed to go scot-free with impunity.
Dubious honours: (Above) Former Penang Island City Council mayor
Patahiyah Ismail with the trophy and certificate for Best Municipal
Manager awards in 2013 while her Seberang Prai counterpart Maimunah
(pictured here with the Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and his aide Wong
Hon Wai) received the same latter award in 2014
BALIK PULAU: The contractor of the 600m elevated road project linking Jalan Bukit Kukus to Jalan Tun Sardon here has been issued with a stop-work order.
The order came following a mishap on the site where 14 concrete beams measuring 25m each fell onto a slope in Jalan Tun Sardon on Thursday.
Eleven beams broke apart in the 8.30pm incident. However, no injuries were reported.
It is learnt that a crane operator accidentally knocked down one of the beams laid on the ground, causing others to fall onto the slope like dominoes.
Penang Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) director Mohd Rosdee Yaacob said the contractor had been instructed to be present at the DOSH office tomorrow for a meeting.
“We are reviewing the standard operating procedures at the work site.
“For now, the contractor is not allowed to load and unload other concrete beams,” he said yesterday
Mohd Rosdee said his officers were only sent to the site on Friday as they were not immediately informed of the incident.
State Works Committee chairman Zairil Khir Johari said the contractor had been told to prepare a full report for DOSH.
He said the Penang Island City Council (MBPP) would also initiate an internal inquiry tomorrow.
The construction of the elevated road, together with the upgrading of a 1.1km stretch along Lebuhraya Thean Teik and a 1.5km stretch along Lebuh Bukit Jambul, is a MBPP project costing RM275.6mil and is scheduled for completion early next year.
The three segments are part of the project for the construction of the RM545mil alternative road – Jalan Bukit Kukus – to help ease traffic snarls along Jalan Paya Terubong, which is an arterial road linking Bayan Baru, Balik Pulau and Air Itam.
The construction works involve linking Lebuhraya Thean Teik in Bandar Baru Air Itam and Lebuh Bukit Jambul in Penang via Jalan Bukit Kukus, building an elevated U-turn along Lebuh Bukit Jambul for those who want to make a turn and go back to Relau. - The Star
Paired road already hits snag
Slow path ahead: The elevated road near Jalan Paya Terubong in Penang will not be ready for another two years.
GEORGE TOWN: Work on the RM545mil Jalan Bukit Kukus paired road project has hit a snag even before the construction mishap in Jalan Tun Sardon.
The completion date on the project, an alternative road linking Lebuhraya Thean Teik in Bandar Baru Air Itam to Lebuh Bukit Jambul, will be delayed by a year till mid-2020 due to unforeseen obstacles during construction.
State Works, Utilities and Flood Mitigation committee chairman Zairil Khir Johari, in describing the project as “very complicated”, said it was constructed by three parties as a cost-saving measure.
“The Penang Island City Council (MBPP) will construct 2.8km of the stretch, while PLB Land Sdn Bhd and Geo Valley Sdn Bhd will construct the remaining 1.4km and 0.7km respectively,” he said.
Zairil said while the three parties involved in the works faced various issues resulting in the delay.
“For example, the MBPP which is working on the 2.8km stretch costing RM275.6mil, faced a delay due to land acquisition issues, realignment and relocation of cables.
“The project is 69% done and to be completed by early 2020.
“PLB Land faced issues with big rocks and boulders. The RM150mil section has progressed 36% and scheduled for mid-2020,” he said.
Zairil said that Geo Valley faced legal issues as the residents affected by their section of the project took up matters with the Appeals Board and the case was pending.
The RM120mil stretch by Geo Valley is now 18% completed.
“Once PLB and Geo Valley complete their portions, we will connect them accordingly,” he said.
It was earlier reported that the contractor of the 600m elevated road project linking Jalan Bukit Kukus to Jalan Tun Sardon was issued with a stop-work order.
The order came after a mishap on the site where 14 concrete beams measuring 25m fell onto a slope in Jalan Tun Sardon on Thursday. No injuries were reported.
It is learnt that a crane operator accidentally knocked down one of the beams laid on the ground, causing others to fall onto the slope.
Paya Terubong assemblyman Yeoh Soon Hin hopes that there will be no further delays.
“About 60,000 vehicles use Jalan Paya Terubong daily to get to Bayan Lepas, and traffic congestion is bad during peak hours.
“I hope the project will be completed safely according to specifications and on schedule for the people to use,” he said.
Once the alternative route is completed, traffic is expected to see a reduction of at least 30%.
The new link will comprise a dual carriageway with a bicycle lane, walkway and LED street lights.
A small waterfall on the hill will also be retained and construction would go around the waterfall.
Last month, MBPP mayor Datuk Yew Tung Seang said the construction on the paired road would take up RM44.2mil of the council’s budget next year. - The Star by Lo Tern Chern
Malaysia’s Penang Island has undergone massive development since the 1960s, a process that continues today with plans for transit and land-reclamation megaprojects.
The island is increasingly facing floods and landslides, problems environmentalists link to paving land and building on steep slopes.
This is the second in a six-part series of articles on infrastructure projects in Peninsular Malaysia.
GEORGE TOWN, Malaysia — Muddy carpets and soaked furniture lay in moldering piles on the streets of this state capital. It was Sunday morning, Oct. 29, 2017. Eight days earlier, torrents of water had poured off the steep slopes of the island’s central mountain range. Flash floods ripped through neighborhoods. A landslide killed 11 workers at a construction site for a high-rise apartment tower, burying them in mud. It was Penang Island’s second catastrophic deluge in five weeks.
Kam Suan Pheng, an island resident and one of Malaysia’s most prominent soil scientists, stepped to the microphone in front of 200 people hastily gathered for an urgent forum on public safety. Calmly, as she’s done several times before, Kam explained that the contest between Mother Earth’s increasingly fierce meteorological outbursts and the islanders’ affection for building on steep slopes and replacing water-absorbing forest and farmland with roads and buildings would inevitably lead to more tragedies.
“When places get urbanized, the sponge gets smaller. So when there is development, the excess rainwater gets less absorbed into the ground and comes off as flash floods,” she said. “The flood situation is bound to worsen if climate change brings more rain and more intense rainfall.”
Five days later it got worse. Much worse. On Nov. 4, and for the next two days, Penang was inundated by the heaviest rainfall ever recorded on the island. Water flooded streets 3.6 meters (12 feet) deep. Seven people died. The long-running civic discussion that weighed new construction against the risks of increasingly fierce ecological impediments grew more urgent. George Town last year joined an increasing number of the world’s great coastal cities — Houston, New Orleans, New York, Cape Town, Chennai, Jakarta, Melbourne, São Paulo — where the consequences are especially vivid.
The empty apartment construction site where 11 men died in an October 2017 landslide. Image by Keith Schneider for Mongabay.
Penang’s state government and Chow Kon Yeow, its new chief minister, recognize the dilemma. Three weeks after being named in May to lead the island, Chow told two reporters from The Star newspaper that “[e]conomic growth with environmental sustainability would be an ideal situation rather than sacrificing the environment for the sake of development.”
But Chow also favors more growth. He is the lead proponent for building one of the largest and most expensive transportation projects ever undertaken by a Malaysian city: a $11.4 billion scheme that includes an underwater tunnel linking to peninsular Malaysia, three highways, a light rail line, a monorail, and a 4.8-kilometer (3-mile) gondola from the island to the rest of Penang state on the Malay peninsula.
The state plans to finance construction with proceeds from the sale of 1,800 hectares (4,500 acres) of new land reclaimed from the sea along the island’s southern shore. The Southern Reclamation Project calls for building three artificial islands for manufacturing, retail, offices, and housing for 300,000 residents.
Awarded rights to build the reclamation project in 2015, the SRS Consortium, the primary contractors, are a group of national and local construction companies awaiting the federal government’s decision to proceed. Island fishermen and their allies in Penang’s community of environmental organizations and residential associations oppose the project, and they proposed a competing transport plan that calls for constructing a streetcar and bus rapid transit network at one-third the cost. (See Mongabay –https://news.mongabay.com/2017/04/is-a-property-boom-in-malaysia-causing-a-fisheries-bust-in-penang/)
For a time the national government stood with the fishermen. Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, the former minister of natural resources and environment and a member of Barisan Nasional (BN), the ruling coalition, refused to allow the project. “The 1,800-hectare project is too massive and can change the shoreline in the area,” he told reporters. “It will not only affect the environment but also the forest such as mangroves. Wildlife and marine life, their breeding habitats will be destroyed.”
The state, and Penang Island, however, have been governed since 2008 by leaders of the Pakatan Harapan coalition, which supported the transport and reclamation mega projects. In May 2018, Pakatan Harapan routed the BN in parliamentary elections. Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamed, the leader of Pakatan Harapan, assumed power once again. Island leaders anticipate that their mega transport and reclamation projects will be approved.
It is plain, though, that last year’s floods opened a new era of civic reflection and reckoning with growth. Proof is everywhere, like the proliferation of huge blue tarps draped across flood-scarred hillsides outside of George Town’s central business district. Intended to block heavy rain from pushing more mud into apartment districts close by, the blue tarps are a distinct signal of ecological distress.
Or the flood-damaged construction sites in Tanjung Bungah, a fast-growing George Town suburb. A lone guard keeps visitors from peering through the gates of the empty apartment construction site where 11 men died in the October 2017 landslide. About a mile away, a row of empty, cracked, expensive and never-occupied hillside townhouses are pitched beside a road buckled like an accordion. The retaining wall supporting the road and development collapsed in the November 2017 flood, causing expensive property damage.
A row of empty, cracked, expensive and never-occupied hillside
townhouses are pitched beside a road buckled like an accordion. The
retaining wall supporting the road and development collapsed in a
November 2017 flood, causing extensive property damage. Image by Keith
Schneider for Mongabay.
Gurmit Singh, founder and chairman of the Centre for Environment, Technology and Development, Malaysia (CETDEM), and dean of the nation’s conservation activists, called Penang state government’s campaign for more growth and mega infrastructure development “a folly.”
“It exceeds the carrying capacity of the island. It should never be approved,” he said in an interview in his Kuala Lumpur office.
Singh, who is in his 70s and still active, was raised on Penang Island. He is an eyewitness to the construction that made much of his boyhood geography unrecognizable. “Everything built there now is unsustainable,” he said.
It’s taken decades to reach that point. Before 1969, when state authorities turned to Robert Nathan and Associates, a U.S. consultancy, to draw up a master plan for economic development, Penang Island was a 293-square-kilometer (113-square-mile) haven of steep mountain forests, ample rice paddies, and fishing villages reachable only by boat.
For most residents, though, Penang Island was no tropical paradise. Nearly one out of five working adults was jobless, and poverty was endemic in George Town, its colonial capital, according to national records.
Nathan proposed a path to prosperity: recruiting electronics manufacturers to settle on the island and export their products globally. His plan emphasized the island’s location on the Strait of Malacca, a trading route popular since the 16th century that tied George Town to Singapore and put other big Asian ports in close proximity.
Sea and harbor traffic on the Strait of Malacca. Image by Keith Schneider for Mongabay.
As a 20th century strategy focused on stimulating the economy, Nathan’s plan yielded real dividends. The island’s population nearly doubled to 755,000, according to national estimates. Joblessness hovers in the 2 percent range.
Foreign investors poured billions of dollars into manufacturing, retail and residential development, and all the supporting port, energy, road, and water supply and wastewater treatment infrastructure. In 1960, the island’s urbanized area totaled 29.5 square kilometers (11.4 square miles), almost all of it in and immediately surrounding George Town. In 2015, the urban area had spread across 112 square kilometers (43 square miles) and replaced the mangroves, rubber plantations, rice paddies and fishing villages along the island’s northern and eastern coasts.
There are now 220,000 homes on the island, with more than 10,000 new units added annually, according to National Property Information Center. George Town’s colonial center, which dates to its founding in 1786, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2008, like Venice and Angkor Wat. The distinction helped George Town evolve into a seaside tourist mecca. The state of Penang, which includes 751 square kilometers (290 square miles) on the Malay peninsula, attracts over 6 million visitors annually, roughly half from outside Malaysia. Most of the visitors head to the island, according to Tourism Malaysia.
Nathan’s plan, though, did not anticipate the powerful ecological and social responses that runaway shoreline and hillside development would wreak in the 21st century. Traffic congestion in George Town is the worst of any Malaysian city. Air pollution is increasing. Flooding is endemic.
Blue tarps drape the steep and muddy hillsides in George Town to slow
erosion during heavy rain storms. Image by Keith Schneider for Mongabay.
Nor in the years since have Penang’s civic authorities adequately heeded mounting evidence of impending catastrophes, despite a series of government-sponsored reports calling for economic and environmental sustainability.
Things came to a head late last year. Flooding caused thousands of people to be evacuated from their homes. Water tore at hillsides, opening the forest to big muddy wounds the color of dried blood. Never had Penang Island sustained such damage from storms that have become more frequent, according to meteorological records. Rain in November that measured over 400 millimeters (13 inches) in a day. The damage and deaths added fresh urgency and new recruits to Penang Island’s longest-running civic argument: Had the island’s growth become a hazard to life?
George Town is far from alone in considering the answer. The 20th century-inspired patterns of rambunctious residential, industrial and infrastructure development have run headlong into the ferocious meteorological conditions of the 21st century. Coastal cities, where 60 percent of the world’s people live, are being challenged like never before by battering storms and deadly droughts. For instance, during a two-year period that ended in 2016, Chennai, India, along the Bay of Bengal, was brutalized by a typhoon and floods that killed over 400 people, and by a drought that prompted deadly protests over water scarcity. Houston drowned in a storm. Cape Town is in the midst of a two-year drought emergency.
George Town last year joined the expanding list of cities forced by Nature to a profound reckoning. Between 2013 and mid-October 2017, according to state records, Penang recorded 119 flash floods. The annual incidence is increasing: 22 in 2013; 30 in 2016. Residents talk about a change in weather patterns for an island that once was distinguished by a mild and gentle climate but is now experiencing much more powerful storms with cyclone-force winds and deadly rain.
Billions of dollars in new investment are at stake. Apartment towers in the path of mudslides and flash flooding rise on the north shore near George Town. Fresh timber clearing continues apace on the steep slopes of the island’s central mountain range, despite regulations that prohibit such activity. Demographers project that the island’s population could reach nearly 1 million by mid-century. That is, if the monstrous storms don’t drive people and businesses away — a trend that has put Chennai’s new high-tech corridor at risk.
The urgency of the debate has pushed new advocates to join Kam Suan Pheng at the forefront of Penang Island’s environmental activism. One of them is Andrew Ng Yew Han, a 34-year-old teacher and documentary filmmaker whose “The Hills and the Sea” describes how big seabed reclamation projects on the island’s north end have significantly diminished fish stocks and hurt fishing villages. High-rise towers are swiftly pushing a centuries-old way of life out of existence. The same could happen to the more than 2,000 licensed fishermen and women contending with the much bigger reclamation proposals on the south coast.
“How are they going to survive?” Han said in an interview. “This generation of fisherman will be wiped out. None of their kids want to be fisherman. Penang is holding a world fisherman conference in 2019. The city had the gall to use a picture of local fisherman as the poster. No one who’s coming here knows, ‘Hey you are reclaiming land and destroying livelihood of an entire fishing village.’”
“We all want Penang to be progressive. To grow. To become a great city,” he adds on one of his videos. “But at whose expense? That’s the question. That’s the story I’m covering.”
Andrew Ng Yew Han, a 34-year-old teacher and documentary film maker
whose “The Hills and the Sea” describes how big seabed reclamation
projects on the island’s north end have significantly diminished fish
stocks and hurt fishing villages. Image by Keith Schneider for Mongabay.
Another young advocate for sustainable growth is Rexy Prakash Chacko, a 26-year-old engineer documenting illegal forest clearing. Chacko is an active participant in the Penang Forum, the citizens’ group that held the big meeting on flooding last October. Nearly two years ago, he helped launch Penang Hills Watch, an online site that uses satellite imagery and photographs from residents to identify and map big cuts in the Penang hills — cuts that are illegal according to seldom-enforced state and federal laws.
Kam Suan Pheng and other scientists link the hill clearing to the proliferation of flash flooding and extensive landslides that occur on the island now, even with moderate rainfall.
In 1960, Malaysia anticipated a future problem with erosion when it passed the Land Conservation Act that designated much of Penang Island’s mountain forests off-limits to development. In 2007, Penang state prohibited development on slopes above an elevation of 76 meters (250 feet), and any slope with an incline greater than 25 degrees, or 47 percent.
Images on Penang Hills Watch make it plainly apparent that both measures are routinely ignored. In 2015, the state confirmed as much when it made public a list of 55 blocks of high-rise housing, what the state called “special projects,” that had been built on hillsides above 76 meters or on slopes steeper than 25 degrees. The “special projects” encompassed 10,000 residences and buildings as tall as 45 stories.
Rexy Prakash Chacko, a 26-year-old engineer who helped launch Penang
Hills Watch, an online site that uses satellite imagery and photographs
from residents to identify and map big cuts in the Penang hills. Image
by Keith Schneider for Mongabay.
“There is a lot of water coming down the hills now,” Chacko said in an interview. “It’s a lack of foresight. Planning has to take into account what happens when climate change is a factor. Clearing is happening. And in the last two years the rain is getting worse.
“You can imagine. People are concerned about this. There was so much lost from the water and the mud last year.”
Ignoring rules restricting development has consequences, as Kam Suan Pheng has pointed out since getting involved in the civic discussion about growth in 2015. After the October 2017 landslide, she noted that local officials insisted the apartment building where the 11 deaths occurred was under construction on flat ground. But, she told Mongabay, an investigation by the State Commission of Inquiry (SCI) found that the apartment construction site abutted a 60-degree slope made of granite, which is notoriously unstable when it becomes rain-saturated.
“State authorities continued to insist that development above protected hill land is prohibited,” Kam said in an email. “There is little to show that more stringent enforcement on hill slope development has been undertaken. Hopefully the findings of the SCI will serve as lessons for more stringent monitoring and enforcement of similar development projects so that the 11 lives have not been sacrificed in vain.”
The market for hillside residential development is strong in George Town
despite the more intense storms. Image by Keith Schneider for Mongabay.
