Article

Environment

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Environment

The environment in the Malay Peninsula and Borneo has been shaped by the interplay between colonial conservation policy, indigenous land use, and the scientific study of tropical ecosystems. From the late nineteenth century onward, the British colonial administration introduced regulations to protect wild fauna and forest resources, while local communities—both Malay villagers and forest-dwelling peoples—asserted their long-standing rights to hunt, fish, gather, and cultivate within these landscapes. The period between the 1890s and the 1940s saw the creation of game reserves, national parks, and forest reserves across the region, generating sustained negotiation between conservationists, colonial administrators, Malay sultans, and the populations whose livelihoods depended on forest access. More recently, environmental themes have been mobilised in national rituals and scientific discourse, from the study of tropical heat and urbanisation to the political symbolism of water in postcolonial Singapore.

Scope and Historical Definition

The environmental record in the Society’s literature spans several distinct but overlapping domains: the conservation of wild fauna and forest ecosystems in British Malaya, the scientific study of tropical meteorology and its relationship to land-use change, and the cultural politics of environmental imagery in postcolonial Singapore.

In the Straits Settlements, the first British temperature observations were made at Penang in the 1780s, at Malacca in 1809, and at Singapore from 1820 to 1824, using instruments brought on English East India Company ships and repurposed in port [1, p. 5]. David Brewster subsequently used the Straits Settlements datasets to resolve a dispute between Alexander von Humboldt and Henry Atkinson over the mean temperature of the equator, publishing his findings in the Edinburgh Journal of Science in the late 1820s [1, pp. 5–6]. The Singapore magnetic observatory, operated by Lieutenant Charles Elliot between 1841 and 1845, produced the first coherent local temperature dataset with hourly readings alongside pressure and weather remarks; it was closed in 1845 due to government funding cuts [1, pp. 6–7]. These early efforts established a scientific infrastructure that would later be oriented toward the study of heat as a local, responsive phenomenon rather than as a variable in global climatic systems [1].

In the context of wildlife conservation, the first regulations for the protection of fauna in British Malaya appeared at the end of the nineteenth century, including restrictions on the hunting of birds with beautiful plumage in the Straits Settlements and the introduction, in 1896, of paid permits for shooting elephants, seladang (Bos gaurus), and rhinoceros in Pahang [2, p. 58]. A first game reserve was created at Coir, in Perak, in 1902, as a result of the recommendation of the 1900 London conference for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna, Birds, and Fish in Africa [2, p. 58]. In 1911 the Federated Malay States adopted an ordinance for the protection of wild animals and birds, and under the terms of this legislation the colonial administrations created additional reserves during the 1920s, some of them very extensive, such as the reserves at Krau (1923) and Gunung Tahan (1925) in Pahang [2, p. 58].

Economic and Ecological Dynamics

The ecological significance of specific habitat features has been documented in detail. Theodore Hubback, writing from direct field observation in Ulu Pahang, argued that salt licks—sulphur springs, saline mud deposits, and related soil exudations—were not incidental features of the Malayan jungle but essential components of the habitat required for the normal life cycle of large mammals including elephant, seladang, rhinoceros, tapir, sambhur, and barking deer [3]. He described a dozen or more specific licks across the Telom, Serau, Jelai Kechil, and Telang valleys, drawing on personal observation of animal behaviour, trail wear, wallow patterns, and the physical evidence of past use to reconstruct the former abundance of species now in steep decline [3]. At Jenut Lanau, the most important lick in the Telom Valley, Hubback identified eight individual tusker elephants and observed up to five sambhur deer feeding simultaneously [3, p. 134]. At Jenut Briang in the Serau Valley, he counted eighteen old rhinoceros pits, and at Jenut Batu Papan he found fourteen, both testifying to former rhino populations now reduced to a handful of survivors [3, pp. 135–136]. In the Serambun Valley, approximately 30,000 acres in extent, Hubback identified only five rhinoceros, including one calf, and applied to have the area designated a rhino reserve—a request he stated was overruled due to gold speculation [3, p. 136].

The sensitivity of these sites to human disturbance was demonstrated at Jenut Stein, where the temporary occupation of a hut by two Chinese jelutong tappers caused both seladang and elephants to abandon the lick for over two years [3, p. 135]. Hubback identified two converging threats to the large fauna: the cumulative depletion of breeding populations through poaching, particularly the “infernal pits” set for rhinoceros, and the disruption of normal breeding cycles caused by the presence of gold stealers and jelutong tappers in river valleys [3].

The economic importance of non-timber forest products to local communities was documented extensively in the context of the King George V National Park. The Malays in Ulu Tembeling and indigenous people living in the forest gathered products including nipa, atap, rotan (climbing palm trees of the Calamoideae family), and megkuang kajang (Pandanus airocarpus) for building houses and wickerwork, collected bark used for dyeing, and gathered gambier (Uncaria gambir), which was both a medicinal and recreational plant [2, pp. 67–68]. Resins such as damar and gaharu (calambac), and sandalwood (cendana) used as incense or in pharmacopoeia, were also collected for sale [2, p. 68]. In the 1920s and 1930s, latex gathered from jelutong trees (Dyera costulata), exported for use in manufacturing chewing gum, became especially important for people living in the vicinity of the park [2, p. 68]. A Chinese entrepreneur from Jerantut, Ng Teong Kiat, obtained exploitation licences for jelutong at Ulu Tembeling from the Forest Department in 1929 and again in 1936, buying the latex from Malay intermediaries who collected it from local residents [2, p. 68]. The khatib Brahim bin Said reported that the harvest of non-timber forest products enabled him to earn about fifty dollars a year, a substantial sum for a farmer in the 1930s, while the intermediary Abdullah bin Haji Suleiman reported a turnover of 1,000 dollars a year, of which 20 per cent was profit [2, p. 69].

In Singapore, the environmental economy of water has been central to national identity. At the time of Kaplan’s writing, Singapore’s water demand was 380 million gallons per day, expected to double to 760 million gallons per day by 2060 [4, p. 127]. Long-term water agreements with Malaysia were signed in 1961 and 1962, fixing prices until 2011 and 2061 respectively [4, p. 127]. NEWater, formally introduced to the public drinking system on National Day 2002, had passed more than 130,000 scientific tests and met up to 30 per cent of the nation’s water needs, with plans to triple capacity to meet 55 per cent of future demand by 2060 [4, p. 132].

The legal architecture for environmental protection in British Malaya was built incrementally. The Wild Animals and Birds Protection Enactment of 1921 for the Federated Malay States allowed for the appointment of public servants responsible for enforcing the regulation and favoured the creation of reserves and sanctuaries; it also resulted in the establishment of game departments headed by European officers known as game wardens [2, p. 60]. Hubback himself became a game warden for Pahang, and in 1933 was appointed Chief Game Warden for the Federated Malay States [2, pp. 60–61].

The creation of the King George V National Park, which stretched across Pahang, Terengganu, and Kelantan, required the agreement of three separate sultanates and the British authorities concerned, including the Colonial Office, the High Commissioner, and the Residents or Advisers to the Sultans [2, p. 61]. The Sultan of Kelantan was the first to grant a tract of land, ceding 198,300 acres (80,249 hectares) in perpetuity; the Sultan of Pahang followed on 14 March 1939, and the Sultan of Terengganu thereafter [2, pp. 63–64]. The royal order contained fifteen articles determining the role of the Park, the modalities of its administration, and the associated powers of policing; mining was expressly forbidden, though a clause permitted the exploitation of mineral deposits of exceptional richness if the trustees agreed [2, p. 64].

A critical legal innovation emerged from the negotiations between the Sultans and the British administration. The Sultans of Pahang and Terengganu refused to sign the Royal Orders creating the National Park until the question of local access was settled. A sixteenth article was then added upon recommendation of the legal adviser of the federal government, stipulating that if it was established to the satisfaction of the Trustees that any person or community living on or near the borders of the State Park had been, immediately before the coming into force of the Enactment, habitually in the enjoyment of any privilege of way, of fishing, of collecting produce, or otherwise, it should be lawful for the Trustees by notification in the Gazette to authorise the continued enjoyment of the privilege so claimed [2, pp. 19–20].

In 1935, Sultan Abu Bakar of Pahang granted a kuasa (a royal warrant of authority) to an aboriginal chief, Batin Sidah, allowing him and those who recognised his authority to remain in the Krau Reserve; the regulation stated that “the Sakai of the tribe of Batin Sidah, now resident in the game reserve, shall be permitted to enter or leave the reserve at any point” [2, p. 21]. In exchange, they were asked to report all serious disturbances affecting the big game, particularly the poaching of gaurs [2, p. 21].

Hubback proposed a specific legislative measure for the protection of salt licks: that land within a two-mile radius of all active licks be reserved from alienation under the Wild Animals and Birds Protection Enactment (Cap. 193), with a scheduled list of protected licks appended to the law [3]. He documented several instances where an existing informal ruling—agreed by the Residents—prohibiting the alienation of land within two miles of a recognised salt lick without Game Warden consultation had been ignored, including a buffalo farm established directly on Jenut Tersang and prospecting licences granted over areas containing Jenut Misong and Jenut Lanau without Game Warden consultation [3, p. 137].

In Singapore, the environmental governance of water was expressed through institutional and symbolic channels. The Public Utilities Board introduced Water Wally as a mascot in 2005, and the ABC Waters programme reframed the engineered water infrastructure as a site of public enjoyment rather than restriction [4, pp. 129–134]. The Botanic Gardens was inscribed as Singapore’s first UNESCO World Heritage site in August 2015 [4, p. 127].

Scientific and Cultural Dimensions

The study of heat in the Straits Settlements reveals a distinctive colonial scientific tradition. Williamson argues that the study of heat in this context was essentially “responsive”—shaped by local environmental anxieties around deforestation, urbanisation, and drought rather than by the abstract global energy-budget models that dominated European meteorological theory [1]. John Crawfurd noted in 1855 that Singapore’s shade maximum temperature had risen from 82.3°F to 86.7°F over approximately twenty years, attributing the increase to “the increase of buildings” and forest clearance for several miles inland [1, p. 7]. The extended drought of 1877, now understood to have been influenced by a protracted El Niño event, catalysed the reservation of large areas of virgin and secondary forest across Singapore island during the 1880s [1, p. 8]. Allan Maclean Skinner, in 1883, correlated an eleven-year sunspot cycle with temperature waves in the Straits Settlements, drawing on fourteen years of continuous local weather records and comparative tables from 166 registering stations in the Eastern Archipelago furnished by the Director of the Batavia Observatory [1, p. 9].

In the cultural sphere, Kaplan’s analysis of Singapore’s national rituals in 2015 introduced a framework of “red, green and blue cultural politics” to trace how water narratives shifted from postcolonial sacrifice (red) through environmental sustainability (green) to a distinctive Singaporean sensibility of pleasure, engagement, and future-oriented hope (blue) [4, pp. 126–127]. The Singapore River clean-up, prominently displayed at tribute sites for Lee Kuan Yew, narrated the red politics of state-led transformation from “third world to first,” while Water Wally embodied a blue politics in which conservation became a matter of desire and enjoyment rather than duty and sacrifice [4, pp. 126–127]. Sixteen community tribute sites were established for Lee Kuan Yew, plus two additional environmental sites: Marina Barrage and the Botanic Gardens [4, p. 129].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on environmental themes reveals a progression from the scientific documentation of tropical ecosystems and meteorological phenomena in the colonial period to the political and cultural analysis of environmental governance in the postcolonial era. The earliest contributions, such as the temperature records from the Straits Settlements observatories and the work of Brewster, Skinner, and Crawfurd, established a baseline of empirical observation that linked local environmental change to broader scientific questions [1]. Hubback’s writings, both his 1941 article on salt licks and his administrative correspondence, represent a distinctive genre: the conservation brief written by a colonial official from direct field experience, combining natural history with policy recommendation [3]. His work on the Krau reserve and the King George V National Park, as documented by Guérin, provides the most detailed account of the negotiation between conservation objectives and local livelihoods in colonial Malaya, drawing on extensive archival material from the National Archives of Malaysia and the Colonial Office papers in the United Kingdom [2].

The shift in the Society’s environmental scholarship is marked by the move from the study of ecosystems and species to the study of environmental politics and culture. Kaplan’s article on Singapore’s water narratives represents a new phase in which environmental themes are analysed as instruments of national identity and postcolonial memory, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and the analysis of public signage, ritual, and state communication [4]. This work builds on the historiography of Singapore’s national rituals and introduces a comparative framework applicable across national contexts [4, pp. 126].

A recurring tension in the literature is between the conservationist imperative to exclude human activity from protected areas and the rights of local communities to access forest resources. Guérin’s article demonstrates that the fault line in these negotiations was not between the British and the Malays, but between those who presented themselves as supporters of the local populations and those who positioned themselves first and foremost as protectors of wildlife [2, p. 23]. The Sultans, notably those of Pahang and Terengganu, played an important role in forcing the Game Department to take into account the interests of the inhabitants while still supporting the creation of protected areas [2, p. 23]. This finding challenges the persistent narrative of Malay sultans as passive instruments of British colonial rule, demonstrating instead their active role in shaping conservation policy and defending the interests of their subjects [2].

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. Fiona Williamson (2022). Heat and Colonial Weather Science in the Straits Settlements, c. 1820–1900 JMBRAS 95(2): 39–55.
  2. M. Guérin (2022). Protecting the Forest and Its Fauna against Local Residents in British Malaya JMBRAS 95(2): 57–82.
  3. T. Hubback (2022). Salt Licks: Their Vital Importance to the Conservation of Wildlife in Malaya. Facsimile reprint JMBRAS 95(2): 133–140.
  4. M. Kaplan (2016). Nation and conservation: postcolonial water narratives in Singapore rituals JMBRAS 89(2): 125–138. Read on JSTOR