On November 8, 2013, five parcels of marine area totaling 1,977 hectares were formally purchased by Country Garden Pacificview (CGPV). According to the Head of Planning & Compliance at IRDA, “Anything with no previous legal ownership belongs to our king and to the sovereign of Johor.” Reclamation is an easy way to acquire large-scale landholdings because new land belongs to the Sultan.
Coastal land reclamation triggers a set of national and state regulatory reviews. A developer is required to follow up with the relevant agencies to obtain all necessary approvals and permits. Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) reports are required before construction can begin on coastal reclamation projects greater than 50 hectares. CGPV argued that the first phase of its development was just 49.3 hectares and, therefore, did not require an EIA.
On January 13, 2014 CGPV submitted a preliminary site assessment for its initial reclamation site. Approval was granted by the Johor Department of Environment, and full-scale reclamation started two days later. Coastal residents and fishermen were surprised to discover barges depositing large quantities of sand directly on the Merambong Shoal, a designated Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA). The classification of this seagrass Shoal does not grant the site any formal protection, but indicates the site’s environmental importance. The project appeared to directly contravene IRDA’s 2011 Shoreline Management Plan, which called for protection of the marine ecosystem and preservation of the shoal’s biodiversity and ecosystem functions.
Malayan Nature Journal, June 2014
IRDA was created in part to streamline the approval process so that permitting and development can proceed more quickly. However, IRDA was not officially contacted regarding the CGPV project until seven months after land reclamation efforts began. It is unclear from media reports exactly who permitted the project to circumvent national and state requirements for a Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA).