Penang’s commitment to sustainability is ramping up. From ecotourism initiatives to grassroots efforts promoting local organic farming and zero-waste living, see what’s transforming the island into a greener hub.
“Look at this boulder,” Allen Tan, managing director of The Habitat, exclaims mid-conversation as we walk through the nature reserve in Penang Hill. He crouches on the ground to point out a camouflaged rock gecko, a species that’s hyperendemic to the Hill.
He does this a lot throughout our forest tour – breaking the conversation to point out stalks of wild ginger, a colony of migrating termites, or a black giant squirrel frantically leaping up a tree. Strolling through a 130-million-year-old virgin rainforest, I can hardly blame him.
Penang, also known by the moniker “Pearl of the Orient”, is a northern state in Malaysia consisting of an island off the Straits of Malacca, and home to George Town, a Unesco World Heritage Site. Due to the effectsimpact of economic development and urban density, the island has inevitably copped the effects of climate change such as rising temperatures and an increase in natural disasters. The state government is mid-way through its 12-year plan to transform Penang into a green, family-focused, net-zero hub.
Attractions like The Habitat certainly contribute to the preservation of the island’s natural biodiversity while also drawing attention to an alternative facet of Penang’s tourism. The park was launched in 2016 by father-and-son duo Reza and Harry Cockrell who have a home in one of the 52 heritage bungalows on Penang Hill. With the Hill being very dear to their hearts, Harry and Reza and Harry wanted to do something meaningful for the community as a way to give back. Subsequently, they responded to and won an international tender called by the state government in 2009, and after years of planning and work, the passionate pair opened the doors to The Habitat.
The park is a part of the Unesco Penang Hill Biosphere Reserve which comprises 12,481ha of protected marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Unbeknownst to many, the Biosphere Reserve represents some 25% of the island – significant for an island that’s only 295m2sqm in size. Today, The Habitat houses thousands of species of flora and fauna, some of which are native to Penang Hill, such as the vampire hill crab which is merely the size of a 50-cent coin.
A highlight of the park is the 230m-span forest canopy walk, in itself an engineering marvel. Across nearly two years, the team went to great pains to build pylons for the bridge entirely by hand instead of heavy machinery to minimise damage toon the forest floor.
The Curtis Crest Treetop Walk treetop walk, meanwhile, is the park’s highest accessible platform where visitors can scan a bird’s eye view of the treetops and its surroundings—including the governor’s mansion, the oldest property on the Hill. From this viewpoint, the difference between the highly urbanised Georgetown and the Hill is stark; patches of brown against vast swathes of green.
Our forest walk concludes at Kommune Lifestyle, a retail store and café where we sip tea made with wild ginger from the forest. Allen expresses his hope for Penang’s tourism future, one which goes hand-in-hand with the island’s lesser-known biodiversity. He also expresses that high value needs to be associated with attractions such as Penang Hill to support the people and resources needed to maintain its natural ecosystems.
“Penang is more than just cheap drinks on Chulia Street. Our nature experiences are equal to [some of the best] in the region,” Allen says.
“For example, people might pay RM500 for a nature experience in Chiang Mai, but RM30 for a ticket admission to a Penang rainforest is deemed expensive. Penang is still regarded as being a relatively affordable destination, and I think we have to move away from that mindset. Hopefully visitors will realise that Penang is also a place for deep experiences which are worth paying more for.”
At a grassroots level, Hoyyee Chee is doing her part as the founder of Grow Community Market – a regular farmer’s market at Hin Bus Depot – to sell organic produce from her farm as well as to educate visitors and tourists about the island’s diverse edible plants.
When Hoyyee started selling her produce eight years ago, she would lament poor sales and a lack of interest from visitors. But through years of awareness and education, the market has gained steady traffic and other local farmers have even joined her quest in pushing Penang produce to the masses.
Her farm is in Gelugor – just 5km south of the city centre – where she also runs Grow Lifestyle Space, a vegetarian café serving up favourites like nasi ulam made entirely from seasonal farm produce.
Penang may be a haven for Malaysian street food, but Hoyyee estimates that a majority of hawkers still use imported produce – usually from China – in their daily fare. Understandably, they might be hesitant to pay more for local organic produce if the cost of a plate of noodles is valued at under RM10.
Nevertheless, Hoyyee emphasises that buying from local farms comes with a bonus of being able to interact with the people who grow the food, as well as revenues being channelled directly to the farmers without pricey middlemen. On top of that, local farmers are often silently battling other issues such as climate change, high costs of land rent and a lack of fertility in Penang’s soil due to urbanisation.
Zero-waste stores are also growing in popularity among conscious consumers. Penang’s most well-known establishment is OWL Zero Waste Grocer, a neighbourhood bulk grocer selling household items, pre-loved clothing and unprocessed foodstuff.
While browsing the store on a weekend, I notice a customer walk in armed with old laundry detergent bottles. After a few minutes, she leaves the store with her bottles filled to the brim with chemical-free detergent and shampoo, a bunch of Batu Ferringhi-grown leafy greens wrapped in newspaper, and some dried beans stored in glass jars.
“When you go to a supermarket, it’s a sea of plastic. I just couldn’t do it anymore,” says owner Cathie Sanchez on what prompted her to helm OWL. These days, she has a roster of loyal customers as well as a steady stream of eco-tourists who stock up on their holiday needs such as chemical-free toothpaste, reusable containers and local snacks.
Cathie has several tips for tourists visiting Penang looking to reduce their carbon footprint: such as takingtake reusable containers as buying fresh foodstuffon trips to wet markets to reduce plastic use, and when buying food fromto hawker centres to from wet markets to reduce plastic use, and to bring reusable containers to hawker centres to avoid polystyrene take-away boxes.
Of course, sustainability is not just an effort whose onus lies solely on the individual. It should be built into a city’s make-up and policies, and ultimately ingrained in how a city is designed. Meet Think City, a Malaysian social-purpose organisation with a stronghold in Penang that has been involved in many of Georgetown’s restoration, urban greening and sustainable development projects.
One of these projects is the recently opened Linear Garden, part of the Penang Green Connector project to build a series of parks, community facilities and connected hubs along the island’s coast. The garden is a strip of shaded respite facing the Esplanade Seawall. Hamdan Abdul Majeed, managing director of Think City, explains that the intention is for the trees in the garden to mature and provide thermal comfort to visitors.
In the next two years, Hamdan and his team have major plans of refurbishingh the North Seafront area and turning it into to become a more holistic recreational space with a cultural museum and large green spaces. More urban greening solutions should be implemented to reduce heat stress and flooding that have become major issues in the state, he adds.
“The idea is to leverage our waterways so they don’t become our backyard, and instead become our assets,” says Hamdan. “When we have public, open spaces, people start to converge and great, spontaneous things can happen, which can transform a destination.”
Hamdan echoes Allen’s sentiment on the importance of Penang’s shift to a high-value destination for tourists as a vital way to sustain the island and its ecosystems. Locals should be able to reap the benefits of tourism, rather than to solely rely on their public purse to clean up the effects of consumerism. Essentially, it should be a win-win formula for both locals and tourists.
“There’s nothing wrong with tourism, it’s just that we need to make sure that tourists who come in are conscious,” he says. “We also need to ensure that prices in Penang are high-value as part of a resilient strategy. Only then we can we be truly sustainable.”
