Urban development squeezing out southern Malaysia’s sea people

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (MNTV) – Rising seas, vanishing mangroves, and intensifying storms are forcing Malaysia’s Orang Seletar to confront a stark reality: the ocean that once sustained them is no longer as generous. 

Along the Johor coast, fishers like Aween Bin Terawin are hauling in smaller catches while navigating increasingly polluted waters, symbols of the broader climate and ecological crises redefining their way of life, reports The Guardian. 

Bin Terawin is a member of the Orang Seletar community, one of Malaysia’s Indigenous sea communities who live along the coast of Johor, Malaysia’s southernmost state.

While some Orang Laut groups (meaning “sea people”) such as the Orang Seletar remain in coastal villages in Johor, others have settled and assimilated into communities in Singapore.

For all their efforts of sustainable fishing, the main sources of livelihood for these people are dwindling, mostly due to property development on the shores where they fish and changing waters as the climate heats. Today, Bin Terawin hauls just two crabs, hardly enough to cover his boat’s petrol costs for the day.

To make space for development, the shorelines of Malaysia and Singapore have been expanding through land reclamation, whereby large quantities of sand are dumped into the sea.

“The land reclamation means there are fewer mangroves, and the fish have nowhere to go,” says Tok Batin Salim Palon, leader of Sungai Temon, one of eight Orang Seletar villages in Johor Bahru with a combined population of about 2,000.

Sungai Temon has been particularly badly affected by property development plans. Despite advocating for their ancestral rights through a protracted legal battle which lasted more than a decade, the villagers have been told they will be relocated in the coming years.

Orang Seletar fishers say such development also affects their ability to fish, as sand dredging stirs up huge clouds of silt.

“The sea has become shallow instead of becoming deeper,” says Bin Terawin. “Our water has become polluted, like coffee water.

“If we see the water is dirty, we don’t go to sea. There’s no use.”

While development has degraded fish habitats, other fishers note that storms have intensified. 

With the loss of mangroves to act as a natural buffer, these storms can be dangerous. “Sometimes we have to cut the net and rush back to land,” says John Aine, a fisherman in nearby Simpang Arang village. This has an economic cost, as nets are expensive to replace.

Despite these hardships, seafaring communities and their descendants are pushing back against this threat to their way of life.

In Johor, communities who still depend on fishing are adapting to their new reality.

Aween’s father, Bowen Bin Terawin, now has a small fish farm which he says yields more catch than traditional fishing methods, and allows him to continue living from the sea.

For Tok Batin, whose community is facing relocation, mainstream education is becoming a vital way to prepare young people for a future where fishing may no longer be viable.

“The young people here might not become fishermen, so it’s good that they are prepared,” he says.

For Bin Terawin, the changes felt by the Orang Seletar are already clear to see, and he thinks more change is on the horizon. 

“Before, Seletar people lived in sampans [wooden boats] but now we live on land,” he says. “Now the Orang Seletar can read and we wear modern clothes.

“If we want to adapt for the future,” he adds. “We need to change.”