Land Use Planning and Environmental Sustainability in Malaysia: Policies and Trends

Editor : Hunud Abia Kaqdouf | Hharifah Zubaidah Al junid
Publisher: IIUM Press
ISBN: 9832957931
Weight: 0.45kg
Pages: 320pp
Year: 2006
Price: RM45

The increasing problems relating to land use planning eventually leading to environmental degradation appear to be endemic to Third World economies. These problems are apparently a natural product of rapid economic developments. In the 1990s, and due to the burgeoning Malaysian economy, problems engulfing land use planning seemed to have reached such a point that demanded some serious concerns in almost all quarters of Malaysian society.

Associated with the issue of land use planning and environmental sustainability are also "inherent and sometimes unavoidable problems relating to both human and technological resources." Priority for the Malaysian Government was once given to economic development rather than environmental sustainability. However, this policy stance seemed to have been modified over years whereupon greater emphasis was put on environmental sustainability. But merely drawing nicely written policies and even change of attitude may not be sufficient to claim that sustainability has actually been achieved.

This book is the product of a collection of papers presented at a national seminar on 'Legal Regime of Land Use and Environmental Sustainability in Malaysia. The authors, most of who are experts in their own respective fields tried to discuss various issues such as land-use planning and its policies, sources of environmental degradation, the concept of sustainability, geohazard management, and control, environmental impact assessment, transboundary atmospheric pollution, etc. As a result, we have a book that is uniquely timely on the subject.