SPECIAL REPORT Forest City, Johor's largest reclamation project, has seen much hue and cry after work began without a detailed environmental impact assessment (DEIA).

Since then, the project's belated DEIA was approved in January this year and its developer, Country Garden Pacific View (CGPV), took several measures to ensure compliance with environmental laws.

The company also adopted a more transparent approach, holding a media briefing last week to detail its ongoing efforts to comply with the Department of Environment's (DOE) regulations.

Meanwhile, Johor ruler Sultan Ibrahim Ismail Sultan Iskandar, who holds a slightly more than a fifth of the stake in CGPV, publicly weighed into the mega project for the first time in an interview with The Star , defending Forest City's impact on the environment.

"I have done my checking. There is not a single dugong (sea cow) that would be affected; get your facts right,” the monarch declared in the interview with the newspaper.

However, documents that are publicly available suggest otherwise, and its environmental impact extends beyond the dugong.

While the DEIA has set Forest City on the path of compliance, it also detailed the extent of damage the project had initially caused.

The initial reclamation work on the southwest of Johor buried the environmentally sensitive Merambong Shoal in the middle, with a 1.5km long, 50-metre wide road cutting across the shoal.

Dubbed the "CG Causeway", it extends from the Johor mainland to the middle of the Johor Straits, near the Singapore border, to facilitate the reclamation work.

The DEIA lists the Merambong Shoal and the Tanjung Adang Shoal as "the most important" in Peninsular Malaysia.

"The seagrass beds sustain a diverse mixture of animals and some of them are considered endangered species, such as the dugong and the seahorse, while commercially important fishes, crabs, prawns and invertebrates, such as the sea star, sea cucumber and anemone, also thrive in the area," the DEIA report says.

According to the report, the Merambong Shoal, which has a rich species of seagrass, including Halophila and Halodule, serves as a "major grazing habitat" for the dugong.

Shoal still partially buried

The report further notes: "Seahorse and pipefish have (also) become iconic fish species living in the seagrass of Merambong Shoal.

"The results of the present survey denoted that this cryptic species use the seagrass bed as their primary habitats and (the) major disturbance presently exerted on the ecosystem will most likely drive them away."

Prior to the DEIA, the Forest City project would have completely buried the shoal but it has since been split into four islands that will surround the "ecologically important habitat".

However, the CG Causeway still stands to date and CGPV executive director Md Othman Yusof acknowledged the urgency of removing the reclaimed area over the Merambong Shoal.

"I told the contractors I wanted it to be removed yesterday (if possible)," Md Othman told Malaysiakini , but he declined to specify a timeframe.

This need is similarly emphasised in Forest City's DEIA report.

"The CG Causeway was reclaimed partly on the Merambong seagrass and has split the ecosystem in two.

"Hence its removal is an immediate action plan to rectify and prevent it from further demolishing the seagrass area and its associated fauna," the report states.

The Forest City configuration to spare the shoal saw its land area reduced from 4,887 acres to 3,425 acres - which Md Othman said would cost the project to lose about RM150 billion in gross development value (GDV) from the initial estimate of RM600 billion.

The Merambong Shoal is only one of several environmentally sensitive areas in the vicinity of the Forest City project.

Among other sites include the Tanjung Adang Shoal, the Sungai Pulai Forest Reserve, which is the "largest intact riverine mangrove area in Malaysia", as well another significant mangrove site along the Tanjung Piai shoreline.

Fishing village a potential dump site

While CGPV has taken remedial measures in dealing with the immediate environmental fallout, the DEIA also highlighted the long-term environmental challenges.

The DEIA proposes that some 7.5 million cubic metres of dredged material, the size of 3,000 Olympic swimming pools, be dumped at Tanjung Balau, a fishermen's village southeast of Johor, located, by sea, some 150km away from the project site.

However, CGPV in an email to Malaysiakini , said dredging works to maintain the waterways around Forest City would only commence about 23 years later.

"For offshore disposal of dredged material, we call it unsuitable material, which cannot be reused for whatever reasons. That material will be disposed in the gazetted offshore dump sites.

"This is in full compliance with Malaysian law," CGPV's environment consultant J Joel Lawrence said at a press briefing on the Forest City project  last week.

CGPV's Md Othman said the company is also looking into new technology that may allow the "unsuitable material" to be reused.

"In some parts of the world... the mud to be disposed of could be used in reclamation work.

 

"We are looking seriously into that at the moment," Md Othman said.

Already, fishermen in the vicinity of Forest City are up in arms over the loss of their livelihood. However, their battle may well extend for decades, and even beyond the project site, unless CGPV is able to contain the long-term fallouts.

For now, at least, the fishermen of Tanjung Balau remain oblivious as to what will be in store for them more than 20 years down the road...

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