The Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle: Sub-regional economic cooperation and integration

Regional economic cooperation is being re-considered in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries comprising Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Brunei. The political leadership in each of the member countries appearsto have recognised that regional integration of their economies hold out better prospects for economic competitiveness and sustained growth. The diversity among the ASEAN states however, explains the mixed reaction to development schemes that have been premised on regional cooperation and economic integration. It is the paradox that while difference among the ASEAN countries account for some of the toughest competition faced by the region's newly industrialising economies, these differences have also been the reason behind integration and cooperation. This paper examines the growth triangle arrangement initiated by the government of Singapore and involving the Riau Islands in Indonesia and the state of Johor in the neighbouring country of Malaysia. The spatial and economic impact of Indonesia-Malaysia-Singapore Growth Triangle, as it is now officially called, is discussed. In spite of the addition of more growth triangles which have been identified following on this pioneering effort in the region, the discussion will highlight the limits to such cooperation at least, among the newly industrializing economies in the region.     

The role of land use on the local climate and air quality during calm inter-monsoon in a tropical city

The modification of land use is known to be a major climate change driver to the local warming and air quality in cities. Despite the reduction of NOx over the years, the Selangor state has captured a higher level of O_3 in year 2011. The measurement result has shown that the surge in O_3 level was attributed to the reduction of NO_x/NMHC ratio. This paper hence attempted to identify the role of land use change from 1999 to 2011 on the ground ozone air quality in the tropical urban conurbation, Greater Kuala Lumpur(GKL), Selangor, Malaysia. With the state-of-the-art chemical weather prediction tool, WRFChem, the external synoptic factors and emission inventory were controlled when comparing the chronological land use changes. The results showed that the urban-induced temperature and wind bias in the tropical region has induced stronger wind to disperse the NO_x and carries the TVOC from the suburban to the downwind urban region. The reduction of NO_x/TVOC has gradually shifted towards the optimum O_3 formation regime in 2011. The formation of highly concentrated ozone becomes more sensitive to the increment of TVOC as the NO_x level reduces in the urban. This highlights the essential involvement of TVOC in the ozone formation in lieu of the NOx reduction in the tropical city, a region with growing emitter of reactive biogenic ozone precursors.     

Larval fish assemblages in a tropical mangrove estuary and adjacent coastal waters: Offshore-inshore flux of marine and estuarine species

A total of 92,934 fish larvae representing 19 families were sampled monthly from the Sangga Kecil estuary (Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve) and adjacent coastal waters from May 2002 to October 2003. Larval fish assemblages were numerically dominated by Gobiidae (50.1%) and Engraulidae (38.4%). Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) revealed that the larval fish assemblages, including their ontogenetic stages, differed between the mangrove estuary and adjacent offshore waters, and that salinity, turbidity and zooplankton food are the major environmental factors structuring the larval fish assemblages. Estuarine preflexion gobiid larvae were ubiquitous in the coastal and estuarine waters. Larval stages of euryhaline species that were spawned in offshore waters, such as Engraulidae and Clupeidae, were largely advected into mangrove areas at the postflexion stages. Larvae of other euryhaline fishes (Sciaenidae, Blenniidae and Cynoglossidae) that may have been spawned inside the estuary were, however, exported to offshore waters. Given that the collective number of juvenile and adult fish families in the Matang estuary was 53, while the number of larval families was only 17, the former is quite disconnected from the existing larval fish population in the estuary.     

SARS in Singapore—challenges of a global health threat to local institutions

SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) has been declared by WHO (World Health Organisation) as a global health threat. Within a period of four to five months in 2003, the disease infected some 8,000 people in more than 25 countries and left 774 dead. The many studies that have been done on the spread of SARS in Asia as well as countries as far flung as Germany and Canada have focused on the global dimension of the infectious disease as well as the speed of its spread upon emergence in southern China and then Hong Kong. Less attention has been paid to its spatial distribution at the national and local scales. This discussion focuses on the spread of SARS at the national and local spatial scales. In the process, the study presents the management of a hazard, in this case, an emerging infectious disease by national health care institutions such as the hospitals that ultimately proved to have been wholly unprepared for coping with at least the health aspects of the outcome of a globalised national agenda for growth and economic progress.     

Effects of sediment burial on tropical ruderal seagrasses are moderated by clonal integration

Seagrasses are clonal plants that grow submerged in dynamic sedimentary environments where burial is a common occurrence. Clonal organisms may respond to burial in very different ways depending on how strongly integrated they are through horizontal rhizomes, but the effect of clonal integration under conditions of stress such as burial is poorly studied for seagrasses. We test the effect of burial on tropical seagrasses that occur in multispecific meadows by subjecting plants in mixed stands to burial of 0, 2, 4, 8 and 16 cm for 27 days. Treatments were divided into those where rhizomes were severed and those where rhizomes were left intact. We hypothesize that species withstand burial better if clonal integration is maintained (intact rhizomes). Results showed that all species tolerated burial of up to 4 cm without adverse effects but significant reductions in shoot density and biomass become evident at 8 cm of burial. Furthermore, Cymodocea serrulata and Syringodium isoetifolium were strong integrators, i.e. they provide support for buried shoots, whereas Halophila ovalis and Halodule uninervis were weak integrators that did not show evidence of subsidizing buried shoots. Vertical elongation was observed for C. serrulata and H. uninervis as a response to burial only when rhizomes were severed, leading us to speculate on whether species rely on vertical elongation as an escape strategy only in the absence of resource translocation. Our distinction between the responses of treatments with intact rhizomes from those with severed rhizomes may be extended to an interpretation of burial scale (intact rhizomes=broad spatial?scale burial; severed rhizomes=fine spatial?scale burial). We concluded that broad spatial?scale burial exceeding 4 cm leads to rapid loss or reduction of all species. However, fine spatial–scale burial exceeding 4 cm, such as those caused by shrimp mounds (bioturbation), is expected to favor C. serrulata and S. isoetifolium, while H. ovalis and H. uninervis are disadvantaged. Clonal integration is an important trait in moderating the response of seagrasses to sediment burial and in this way, helps them to cope in high-stress habitats.     

Mahsuri’s curse—globalisation and tourist development in Pulau Langkawi

The legend of Mahsuri abounds in Malaysian school textbooks. Mahsuri was a beautiful and very charming village maiden who lived in Pulau Langkawi and was wrongfully put to death in 1819 or the year 1235 hijrab. Accused of adultery by a jealous member of the royal house, Mahsuri, who was married to the Chief Minister, was sentenced to death together with her alleged lover, a trader from a place which is now part of Thailand in Phuket. Killed with her own family’s keris (a traditional Malay sword), Mahsuri put a curse on Pulau Langkawi for seven generations. She swore before her death that there would be no peace or prosperity on the island for the duration of these seven generations. Mahsuri’s family moved to another village in what was then the territory of Thailand and finally settled in Phuket, illustrating the cultural and trading links that have existed in this northern part of Malaysia between the southern parts of Thailand and the states of Perlis and Kedah. Mahsuri’s family and she appear to have not been allowed to rest in peace since her premature death. Her tomb, which was enshrined by the villagers, has been relocated several times and the exact location of its whereabouts may not be known. The tombstone itself is now housed in a museum that has been constructed near to the site where the tomb is believed to be. A huge tourist complex called Kota Mahsuri is being developed around the site of Mahsuri’s tomb. Pulau Langkawi may be the island paradise lost. Perhaps Mahsuri’s curse lingers, no matter that seven generations have passed and with them the industries that integration with the global economy has seen developed, declined and disappeared. Then again, perhaps this is indeed the curse—the quest for prosperity in a globalizing world and its relentless exploitation of the heritage in strategic parts of Malaysia—both natural and cultural—for the gains of a few and questionable benefits to the rest.     

Knowledge gaps in tropical Southeast Asian seagrass systems

Seagrasses are habitats with significant ecological and economic functions but we have limited knowledge of seagrasses in Southeast Asia, the hypothesized centre-of-origin for tropical seagrasses. There have been only 62 ISI-cited publications on the seagrasses of Southeast Asia in the last three decades and most work has been in few sites such as Northwest Luzon in the Philippines and South Sulawesi in Indonesia. Our understanding of the processes driving spatial and temporal distributions of seagrass species here has focussed primarily on backreef and estuarine seagrass meadows, with little work on forereef systems. We used Pulau Tinggi, an island off the southeast coast of Peninsular Malaysia, as an example of a subtidal forereef system. It is characterized by a community of small and fast growing species such as Halophila ovalis (mean shoot density 1454.6 ± 145.1 m⁻²) and Halodule uninervis (mean shoot density 861.7 ± 372.0 m⁻²) growing in relatively low light conditions (mean PAR 162.1 ± 35.0 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ at 10 m depth to 405.8 ± 99.0 μmol m⁻² s⁻¹ at 3 m water depth) on sediment with low carbonate (mean 9.24 ± 1.74 percentage dry weight), organic matter (mean 2.56 ± 0.35 percentage dry weight) and silt-clay content (mean 2.28 ± 2.43 percentage dry weight). The literature reveals that there is a range of drivers operating in Southeast Asian seagrass systems and we suggest that this is because there are various types of seagrass habitats in this region, i.e. backreef, forereef and estuary, each of which has site characteristics and ecological drivers unique to it. Based on our case study of Pulau Tinggi, we suggest that seagrasses in forereef systems are more widespread in Southeast Asia than is reflected in the literature and that they are likely to be driven by recurring disturbance events such as monsoons, sediment burial and herbivory.     

Indonesia's energy transitions

This paper traces the energy transitions in Indonesia: from woodfuels to coal, spanning the period from the establishment of Dutch colonial rule to the 1950s; and from coal to oil, spanning the period from the 1950s to the oil crisis of 1973–1974. It then examines the role of oil in the energy mix of Indonesia, and discusses the reasons — high rates of domestic oil products consumption; the importance of oil as a foreign exchange earner — for the country to move away from oil dependency to alternative forms of energy to meet her domestic needs.