Sustainable Development and Worldviews

A recent article about Penang’s marine life in The Asean Post has given wrong impression about a reclamation proposal and the fisheries condition in the State. (‘ Penang’s new islands will kill marine life ,’ 23 June 2019) I would like to provide facts to correct the article’s misleading portrayal of the matter. Exaggeration of fishermen’s plight The article states that “The proposed area for the artificial islands is currently the place where most fishermen around the state coastline live and work. Objections have come from this group of fishermen whose livelihoods and villages are threatened most by this project.” (Emphasis added) This is wrong as the number of fishermen living in Barat Daya district, where the reclamation site is located, is 912 out of 2,905 registered fishermen in Penang. That means most of the fishermen are living at other coastline in the State, not at the reclamation site. Besides exaggerating the number of fishermen staying near the

Al Jazeera’s recent article about Penang South Reclamation adds to the list of lopsided coverage about the project. It is as if the future of the fishermen is all that matters in Penang. Such coverage completely ignores the huge middle working class in manufacturing and services sector in Penang.  These sectors are the actual economic and social driver of the State, accounting for more than 94 percent of Penang’s GDP in 2017. It is as if the severe deficit of 75,000 high-skilled jobs to cater to 174,000 Malaysians who graduate every year is irrelevant to the future of the next generation and their parents who worked tirelessly to pay for their children’s education. Should these unemployed graduates end up as fishermen? It is as if the fact that Penang, as the second smallest state in Malaysia, produces 8 percent of the global back-end semiconductor output is not significant enough to convince media such as Al Jazeera that it is economically strategic and

I’m glad that my previous article on public transport policy has invited the response from Ahmad Hilmy , a transport expert from Universiti Sains Malaysia. He has marshalled a list of other transport experts to support his point that the construction of roads is the cause of increasing private vehicle usage. However, the expertise that Ahmad has cited is a misapplication as those experts are dealing with different subject matter of a different era. For instance, they did not study the present Hong Kong like I did. In fact, it is impossible for them to include the present Hong Kong in their study as some of them were writing their observation more than half a century ago. The experts such as R. J. Smeed and J. G. Wardrop, whom Phil Goodwin relied on and cited approvingly by Ahmad, wrote their study in the early 1960s, before Hong Kong even started building their Mass Transit Railway. These experts whom Ahmad referred to are limited by their era to incorporate the presen