ENVIRONMENTAL

SUSTAINABILITY:
Theory and practices
SEMINAR KEJURUTERAAN AWAM (SEMKA)
SEMESTER 1 SESI 2015-2016
17hb OKTOBER 2015
UTM JOHOR BAHRU

PRESENTED BY

VINCENT CHOW
Chairman,
Malaysian Nature Society Johor branch
Issues of environmental sustainability

• Access to safe drinking water

• Deforestation

• Climate Change

• Ocean Management
What we know of environmental sustainability

Awareness of plans by
Improvement of lives of Understanding the government to
Environmental
100 million slum preserve environment
Sustainability
dwellers by 2015 6%
4%
9%

Awareness of people with

adequate sanitation
9%

Awareness of thinning of
Knowledge of prevalence ozone layer
of deforestation 16%
15%
Understanding the term
'Carbon Footprint'
13%

Knowledge of legislation Awareness of plans by

Witnessing
to curb bush fire WASA to provide enough
bush fires
8% safe drinking water
7%
12%
Important definitions
Environment

External conditions affecting life forms including plants, animals and human
beings as individuals or in social groups. It refers to all aspects of the
surroundings. It includes the NATURAL ENVIRONMENT (air, water, soil,
plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms), the built environment
(buildings, roads, housing and recreation facilities) and social and cultural
aspects of our surroundings.
Sustainable
• Referring to an activity that is able to be carried out without
damaging the long-term health and integrity of natural and
cultural environments.
What is Sustainability?
• Sustainability – the ability of the
earth’s various natural systems and
human cultural systems and economies
to survive and adapt to changing
environmental conditions indefinitely.
 What is Sustainability?
•
• Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything
that we need for our survival and well-being depends,
either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment.

• Sustainability creates and maintains the conditions

under which humans and nature can exist in productive
harmony, that permit fulfilling the social, economic and
other requirements of present and future generations.
• There are five sub-themes for that help
pave a way toward sustainability:

• Define natural capital.

• Accept that many human activities result in the
degradation of natural capital.
• Environmental scientists search for solutions.
• Proposed solution lead to conflicts require
trade-offs (or compromises).
• Individuals matter to search for solutions to
environmental problems.
Nutrient cycling: an important natural service that recycles
chemicals needed by organisms from the environment (mostly from
soil and water) through organisms and back to the environment.
Individuals Matter: Aldo Leopold
5–10% of the population can bring about major social
change

1. Anthropologist Margaret Mead

• “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can
change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

2. Aldo Leopold: environmental ethics

• A leader of the conservation and environmental
movements of the 20th century
• Land ethic
Wrote: A Sand County Almanac
• Living sustainably means
living off natural income – renewable resources
such as plant, animals and soil provided by natural
capital.

• 2005 Millennium Ecosystems Report

• 4 year study involving 1360 experts
• 62% of earth’s natural services are degraded or
overused.
• Report warned,
“..human activity is putting such a stain on the natural
functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s
ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer
be taken for granted.”
Some Sources Are Renewable
• Perpetual resource
• Solar energy

• Renewable resource – on a human timescale can be

replenished fairly quickly (hours to hundreds of years) through
natural processes as long as it is not used up faster than it is
renewed.
• e.g., forests, grasslands, fresh air, fertile soil

• Sustainable yield – highest rate at which a renewable

resources can be used indefinitely without reducing its availabl
supply.

• Environmental degradation results when SY is exceeded.

Extreme poverty: boy searching for items to sell in an open dump in Rio de
Janeiro, Brazil. Many Children of poor families who live in makeshift shanty-
towns in or near such dumps often scavenge all day for food and other items to
help families survive.

• Despite a 40-fold
increase in economic
growth since 1900,
more than half of the
world live in extreme
poverty. One in six are
desperately poor.

• Continued conventional
economic growth or
environmentally
sustainable economic
development?
Some Resources Are Not
Renewable
• Nonrenewable
resources
• Energy resources
(e.g., coal and oil)
• Metallic mineral
resources (e.g., ores of
Cu and Al)
• Nonmetallic mineral
resources (e.g., salt
and sand)
• Reuse
• Recycle
Figure 1-8 Reuse: This child and his
family in Katmandu, Nepal, collect
beer bottles and sell them for cash.
 Our Ecological Footprints Are
Growing(1)

Consumption of natural resources:

On the left, subsistence farmers in the
Himalaya Mountains between China
and India. Their use of resources is
devoted to mostly to meeting their
basic needs.
.
On the right, a Pearland Texas
family, typical of affluent nations
Their use of resources is way
beyond their basic needs
Our Ecological Footprints Are
Growing(2)
• Ecological footprint concept
• – amount of biologically productive land and water needed
to supply the people of a country or area w/ resources and
to absorb and recycle wastes and pollution produced by
such resource use.

• Biological capacity – the ability of an area to replenish its

resources and absorb the resulting waste products and
pollution.

• Ecological deficit – when ecological footprint is larger than

biological capacity.

• Relative ecological footprints

Natural capital use and degradation: total and per capita ecological footprints of selected
countries (top). In 2003, humanity’s total or global ecological footprint was about 25% higher
than the earth’s ecological capacity (bottom) and is projected to be twice the planet’s
ecological capacity by 2050.
 Cultural Changes Have
Increased Our Ecological
Footprints (1)

• Culture – the whole of society’s knowledge, beliefs,

technology, and practices.
• Cultural changes have had profound effects on the earth.
• Present form of our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, has walked
the earth for 95-195 thousand years, a mere blink in the 3.6
billion year planetary life history.
• 12,000 years ago: hunters and gatherers
Cultural Changes Have
Increased Our Ecological
Footprints (2)
• Three major cultural events
• Agricultural revolution (10 to 12 ya)
• Industrial-medical revolution (275 ya)
• Information-globalization revolution (50 ya)

• These changes were associated with greater energy

use, greater resource use, more pollution and
environmental degradation.

• Environmental scientist call for an environmental, or

sustainability, revolution
Why Do We Have Environmental
Problems?
• Major causes of environmental problems are
population growth, wasteful and unsustainable
resource use, poverty, exclusion of environmental
costs of resource use from the market prices of
goods and services, and attempts to manage
nature with insufficient knowledge.
•
People with different environmental worldviews
often disagree about the seriousness of
environmental problems and what we should do
about them
Experts Have Identified Five Basic
Causes of Environmental Problems
• What are some major environmental problems
cause by pushing resources through the global
economies?

• Five basic causes for environmental problems:

• Population growth
• Wasteful and unsustainable resource use
• Poverty
• Failure to include the harmful environmental costs
of goods and services in their market prices
• Insufficient knowledge of how nature works
Environmental and social scientists have identified five basic causes of
the environmental problems we face. Question: What are three ways in
which your lifestyle contributes to these causes?

Question: What are three ways in which your

lifestyle contributes to these causes?
World Population Growth
1950: 2.5 billion
2004: 6.4 billion
2100: 8-12 billion
Current avg. growth rate
1.25%/year = 219,000 people
per day or 80 million per year.
(6.4 billion X 0.0125)

Despite a 22 fold increase in

worldwide economic growth,
almost one of every two survive
on less than $3/day.
 Core Case Study: Exponential Growth (1)

• Slow start, rapid increase

• Human population
• 2007 ~ 6.7 billion people
• Projections
• 225,000 people per day
• Add population of U.S. < 4 years
• 2050 ~ 9.2 billion people
 Core Case Study: Exponential Growth

• Resource consumption, degradation, depletion

• Possible results
• Huge amount of pollution and wastes
• Disrupt economies
• Loss of species, farm land, water supplies
• Climate change
• Political fallout
Poverty Has Harmful Environmental
and Health Effects (1)
• Poverty – when people are unable to meet
their basic needs for adequate food, water,
shelter, health, and education.
• ½ world’s population are desperate for short-term
survival depleting and degrading forests, soil,
grasslands, fisheries, and wildlife at an increasing
rate.
• Difficult to worry about long-term environmental
quality and sustainability.
Poverty Has Harmful Environmental
and Health Effects (2)
• Population growth affected
• More children for security  higher growth rate
• Poverty increase degradation of environment, likewise,
environmental degradation can increase poverty.
(positive feedback)
• Malnutrition – lack of protein and other nutrients
needed for good health.
• Premature death
• Limited access to adequate sanitation facilities and
clean water (2.6 billion people and 1 billion get water from
sources contaminated by human and animal feces)
Poverty Has Harmful Environmental
and Health Effects (3)
• WHO estimates 7
million premature
deaths each year.

• 2/3 are children

younger than age 5.

Figure 1.13
Some harmful results of poverty.
Global Outlook:
in developing countries, one in every
three children under the age of 5, such as
this child from Lunda, Angola, suffers
from severe malnutrition. WHO
estimates that each day at least 13,700
children under age 5 die prematurely
from malnutrition and infectious diseases,
most from drinking contaminated water
and being weakened by malnutrition.
Affluence Has Harmful and Beneficial
Environmental Effects
• Harmful environmental impact due to
• High levels of consumption
• Unnecessary waste of resources
• Can obtain resources from anywhere in the world w/o seeing
the harmful environmental impacts.

• Positive influence
• Air cleaner, water safer, rivers and lakes cleaner, food supply
more abundant and safer, life-threatening infectious diseases
greatly reduced, lifespans longer, and some endangered
species being rescued from extinction.

• Affluence can provide funding for

• Developing technologies to reduce
• Pollution
• Environmental degradation
• Resource waste
 Industrial revolution

Black Death—the Plague

Hunting Agricultural revolution Industrial

and gathering revolution
Fig.Fig.
1-1,
1-1,p.
p. 15
Solutions
• Understand our environment

• Practice sustainability
What Is an Environmentally Sustainable
Society?
• Our lives and economies depend on energy from
the sun (solar capital) and natural resources and
natural services (natural capital) provided by the
earth.

• Living sustainably means living off earth’s

natural income without depleting or degrading
the natural capital that supplies it.
Studying Connections in Nature
• Environment – everything around us
• Environmental science – interdisciplinary
study of our relationship with…..
• Ecology – biological science, ecosystems
• Environmentalism – social movement
our dying earth
Ironies of life -Overeating and Hunger
THE LOCAL SCENE:
EXAMPLES OF
DEGRADATION OF
NATURAL RESOURCES
Loss of mangroves = loss of natural system
functions and services

Clearing of mangroves for development

project. Sustainable?
Lojing highlands,Kelantan.
Result of illegal land-clearing and agricultural development

BEFORE AFTER
‘FOREST CITY PROJECT”
Merambong reclamation, off Kg.Pendas
PROBLEMS

1.Fishermen unhappy that their fishing grounds will be lost to reclamation.

2.Presence of seagrass area is the largest in Malaysia.

This habitat is crucial to juveniles of many marine lives

3. Loss of the seagrass areas will cause loss of rich marine food source , hence
income . Crucial to sensitive species like seahorse, dugong and sea-turtles that
use the seagrass for food or shelter

Halophila decipiens
Case study: Johor’s seagrass

• HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUIT

SEAGRASS?
SEAGRASS BEDS OF PENINSULAR
MALAYSIA

Seagrass beds of
south-west Johor
Locations of seagrass beds in
Malaysia

Source: Japar Sidik et al.,(2006)

Seagrass beds are home to diverse marine
organisms
• 70-76 species of fishes in 41 families have been observed in the sub-idal sho
Tanjung Adang and Merambong seagrass beds (Japar Sidik, 2006)

• Sea-cucumbers, echinoderms, gastropods, bivalves, seaweeds thrive here.

• Nursery grounds for invertebrates and vertebrates

• Dugongs, birds and sea-turtles feed here

HUMAN THREATS NATURAL

THREATS

SEAGRASS
HABITAT
THREATS

HUMAN
1.Land reclamation cause
sedimentation and burial of
seagrass and destruction of the
habitat

NATURAL
Invasion of sea weed
( Ulva, amphiroa fragilissima
Graciliaria fisheri)
 THE MERAMBONG SHOAL

The sea-grass beds, namely the Tg.Adang Shoals and the Merambong Shoals are
located in the Straits of Johor between Malaysia and Singapore.

The former has been lost partially to the extension of the Port of Tg.Pelepas
while the latter is approximately 1.3 km in length.

So far 10 sea-grass species are known from here with the predominant ones being
Enhalus acoroides and Halophila ovalis.
The known size of the seagrass beds here are Tanjung Adang Laut shoal 40.0ha,
Tanjung Adang Darat shoal 42.0 ha. and Merambong shoal 30.0ha .
(Bujang and Zakariah 2003)
The problem?
Source:NST 22.12
30 YEARS PROJECT. 60,000 POPULATION

https://youtu.be/TctHfh142fs?t=20s
 SEAGRASS ECOLOGY
AND IMPORTANCE
• Seagrasses consist of less than 0.02% of the angiosperm flora in the
world (Hemminga and Duarte, 2000).

• Even though the contribution is small, the seagrasses are of great

ecological importance and have a high conservational value (Edgar
and Shaw, 1995).

• They serve as indicator systems for coastal processes (Frankovich and

Furqurean, 1997).

• The seagrass meadows, moreover, have been known as one of the

most productive marine ecosystems following the mangrove and coral
reefs (Rasheed et al., 2006; Blankenhorn, 2007).

• The total economic value of seagrass systems services is at least US$

3.8 trillion per year globally, and is likely to increase (Costanza et al.,
1997).
According to Bujang et al( 2009), fourteen species of seagrasses have
been recorded in Malaysia - Enhalus acoroides, Halophila beccarii, H.
decipiens, H. ovalis, H. minor, H. spinulosa, Halodule pinifolia, H.
uninervis, Cymodocea rotundata, C. serrulata, Thalassia hemprichii,
Syringodium isoetifolium, Ruppia maritima and Thalassodendron ciliatum.

Seagrass meadows account for the high diversity and ensure survival of
assortment of vertebrates (fishes),invertebrates (shrimps, starfishes, sea
cucumbers, bivalves, gastropods), and seaweeds.

Seagrass form the food and habitats for the vulnerable dugongs (Dugong
dugon), seahorses (Hippocampus spp.) and endangered green turtles
(Chelonia mydas), other fishes and feeding ground for seasonal migratory
birds, Egretta garzetta. Seagrasses provide conditions for growth and
abundance of invertebrates and fish thatmany local coastal communities
collect and catch for their livelihood
WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE MERAMBONG
SHOALS

• It is a 30 ha sandy-mud subtidal shoals where from nine species

out of a total of 12 seagrass species recorded in Malaysia could
be found here (Japar Sidik et al. 2006).

• Over the years Merambong Shoal has been providing food for
the local fishing communities in terms of marine fishes, crabs,
and edible molluscs such as bivalves and gastropods. This
valuable ecosystem has major market and non-market
economic values in fisheries, raw materials research, shoreline
protection, carbon sequestration and as an important contributor
in biodiversity (MPP-EAS 1999).
Grass species of the Merambong,Tg.Adang
Shoals as well as the estuary Sg.Pulai
FEEDING TRAILS OF
 SEAGRAS
S
ASSOCIAT
Monocanthus chinensis
formed the bulk of the
ES
total catches from
sampling of a 20m
seagrass of Sg Pulai.
Bottom of row 5 are two
minor species of
Monacanthus, not
identified
KEY TO FISH
SPECIES
1. Apogon angustatus
2. Apogon doederleini
3. Alepes djejaba
4. Coris maculata
5. Hemigobius mingi
6. Stolephorus indicus
7. Peneaus spp.(mixed)
8. Tetraodon nigroviridis
9. Scatophagus argus
10 . Siganus javus
11. Butis butis
12. Sphyraena obtusata
1. Allenbatrachus
reticulatus
14. Gymnothorax sp.
15. Gymnothorax tile
16. Plotosus canius
Graph: Fish families present in a sampled stretch of Merambong Seagrass
Meadow
SEAGRASS HABITAT –
MEARMBONG SHOALS

Crocodile pipefish
Spotted Seahorse
Hippocampus kuda Doryichthys boaja
CRUSTACEANS

Portunus pelagicus

Porcelain crab
Penaeids and metapenaeids Oratosquilla sp. Alpheus
Sea Urchin Noble volute
Salmacis sp.

Peacock Anemone
Knobbly
starfish
Pillow Sea star
(Top: obverse
side,
below: reverse
Peacock worm side)
 List of species of sea cucumber found in
the seagrass bed of Merambong Shoal.

Family Species
• Cucumariidae Colochirus quadrangularis Troschel, 184
Cercodemas anceps Selenka, 1867
Cucumaria sp1.
Cucumaria sp2.

• Phyllophoridae Globosita murrea Cherbonnier,1988

• Caudinidae Acaudina molpadioides (Semper,1867)
• Holothuriidae Holothuria scabra Jaeger, 1833
• Holothuria sp1.

• Holothuria sp2.
Source: Malayan Nature Journal 2014, 66(1 and 2), 139-145
Sea cucumber species of the Merambong Shoal with notes on the
distribution and habitat of the dominant species
 A SAMPLING OF SEA CUCUMBERS O
MERAMBONG SEAGRASS BEDS

Thorny Sea cucumber

(Colochirus quandrangularis)

Ball Sea cucumber

Phyllophorus sp.

See-through sea cucumber Cercodemas

(Paracaudina australis) anceps

Paracaudinia sp. Sandfish Sea cucumber

Holothuria scabra
Species composition of macrogastropods found in
Merambong seagrass meadows
_______________________________________________________
Family Columbellidae Family Strombidae Family Potamididae
Euplica scripta Strombus canarium Cerithidea sp.
Strombus urceus 8
Pyrene versicolor Cerithidea sp.
Strombus sp. 4
Family Cypraeidae
Cypraea miliaris Family Turridae
Clathrodillia jeffreysii
Family Fasciolariidae
Latirus formosior 6 Family Volutidae
Cymbiola nobilis
Latirus sp.
Latirus sp.
Total species 18
Family Muricidae
Thais jubilaea
Dominant species at seagrass bed, Merambong Shoal,
Thais sp.
(a) Nassarius livescens b )Strombus canarium
Family Nassariidae
Nassarius livescens
Nassarius sp.

Family Naticidae Source: Malayan Nature Journal 2014, 66(1 and 2), 132-138
Natica tigrina The diversity of the marine macrogastropods on the seagrass meadows in Merambong
Shoal, Johore
TEH, C.P.1*, NITHIYAA, N.1, AMELIA NG, P.F.1, WOO, S.P.1,
 GASTROPODS OF MERAMBONG

Euplica Latirius formosior

Canarium urceus typica Cyprea miliaris
scripta

Nassarius liviscens Natica tigrina Strombus canariam Thais jubilaea

BIVALVES:PENSHELLS

Pinna bicolor Pinna deltodes

Mohd Hanafi Idris et al(2008)

Morphometric Analysis as an
Application Tool to Differentiate Three
Local Pen Shells Species. Pertanika
J. Trop. Agric. Sci. 31(2): 287 – 298

Pinna atropurpurea
 27 SPECIES of gastropods and 12 species of bivalves have been
recorded from the Merambong seagrass meadows (Zaidi 2008)

15 species from 10 families of epifaunal bivalves are found in the

Merambong seagrass ecosystem

Source: Malayan Nature Journal 2014, 66(1 and 2), 42-51

The Epifaunal Marine Bivalves and Macrophytes in Merambong Shoal, Pulai River Estuary, Straits of Ma
WONG N. L. W. S.1*, A. ARSHAD2, F. M. YUSOFF2, B. JAPAR SIDIK3 and A. G. MAZLAN4
CHANGES TO
THE
MERAMBONG
SEAGRASS
MEADOWS
24th July 2013
Reclamation started Feb 2014.
by April 2014 work already in full
steam
May 2014
IMPACTS OF
RECLAMATION
• Land reclamation works for the Forest City and Tanjung Piai
Marine Park projects at the Johor Straits have slashed local
inshore fishermen’s earnings by half, said Agriculture and Agri-
based Industries Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.
•
Read more:
https://www.malaysiakini.com/news/293185#ixzz3ly2a5A7d
EFFECTS OF RECLAMATION AT MERAMBONG SEAGRASS
MEADOWS
 Graveyard of bivalves Placuna sella

Dead zones : hypoxic conditions affected Dead and dying Ball cucumber(Phyllophoros)
marine lives
PREDICAMENT OF THE SEAGRASS

• Bujang and Zakaria(2003) contend that mangrove reserves have been established
and coral reefs are protected and conserved in marine parks and marine protected
areas. There are guidelines and policies governing the conservation and
management of mangroves by the National Mangrove Committee and corals under
the Fisheries Act 1985.

• However the importance of seagrasses at local and national levels ,and from the
standpoint of conservation, has received far less attention.

• There are no specific reserves or legislation for seagrasses. Given the importance of
seagrass as fisheries habitat, nursery and feeding grounds in Malaysia, this neglected
and relatively lesser known resource must be afforded the same priority and be as
well managed as mangroves and corals to provide for future renewable resource
utilization, education and training, science and research, conservation and protection.
•
Tragedy of the Commons
1968 Garrett Hardin
Degradation of
renewable free-
access resources.

“If I do not use this

resource, someone
else will. The little bit I
use or pollute is not
enough to matter, and
such resources are
renewable anyway.”
Four Scientific Principles of Sustainability
RECAPITULATIONS
AND SUMMARY ON
SUSTAINABILTY
THINK ABOUT ALL OUR
POSSIBLE ENVIRONMENTAL
PROBLEMS AND YOU WILL
UNDERTSTAND WHY
SUSTAINABILITY IS VERY
DIFFICULT TO MANAGE!
DATS’S ALL FOLK!

THANK YOU.