The Hungry Island

In early February, the Singapore government announced its plans to eventually support and sustain 6.5 million people on our little island. Right now we're already the 2nd most crowded country in the world.

Blogger Alex Au (aka Yawning Bread) was not too concerned about this. In his analysis, he considered three broad areas - housing, transport and leisure. Alex gave examples of how it could or would be possible to create adequate space in Singapore for 6.5 million people. For example, build taller flats; build more train lines; build more linkways between buildings; build taller shopping centres and cineplexes.

All his suggestions share one common element - build. Perhaps that's what has recently terrified Indonesia. Construction requires concrete, and concrete requires sand, and Singapore has little of its own. So we must get what we need from our neighbours.

According to the Times article below, in 1965 Singapore was 581 sq km (224 sq miles); but by 2007, it had grown to 650 sq km and also plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years. Furthermore it is not merely that our surface area is expanding; we are also building underground (eg more and more MRT lines) and upwards (taller and taller buildings) and all these activities require natural resources.

When we see things in this light, we may begin to realise that Indonesia may have genuine environmental concerns about Singapore grabbing its sand. Sometimes we may be overly inclined to think of Singapore as the poor whipping boy of its big, nasty neighbours. We might also see the recent sand ban as Singapore's latest whipping. But if you were Indonesia, wouldn't it be legitimate for you to be a little concerned about your vanishing islands?

TIMES March 17, 2007
Singapore accused of land grab as islands disappear by boatload
Richard Lloyd Parry, Asia Editor

With more than 17,000 islands — from the jungly expanses of Borneo and Sumatra to unnamed rocks jutting out of the sea — you may think that Indonesia would not mind if a few of them went missing. But the huge South-East Asian nation has become caught up in a furious dispute with Singapore, its tiny neighbour, which is accused of literally making off with its territory.

Indonesia has banned the export of sand and imposed strict controls on shipments of gravel, after fears that its islands were being loaded on to ships and carried away to Singapore. In its thirst for building materials and landfill to reclaim new territory from the sea, Indonesians allege, Singapore has been stealing the land beneath their feet.

The dispute reached a climax this week after 24 tugs and barges, carrying granite chips, were intercepted by the Indonesian authorities as they sailed home to Singapore. Jakarta announced that future exports would be allowed only if the granite could be certified as environmentally friendly.

Since Indonesia announced its ban on sand in February, the price of a cubic metre of it has increased more than seven times, from S$6.5 (£2.18) to S$50. The Indonesian Navy has mobilised 18 ships to intercept gravel pirates and sand bandits.

“Some of these islands are reduced to islets, and could even disappear below the surface,” Hendropriyono, Indonesia’s former intelligence chief, has said. “This could theoretically lead to a cartographic zero-sum game in which Singapore’s gain could be at Indonesia’s territorial loss.”

Relations between Singapore and its neighbours have been tense since the city state became independent from Malaysia in 1965, and disagreements often arise over natural resources. The Singaporean achievement was to create an affluent, highly educated society in a swampy, jungly, malarial island with a population of 4.5 million people at the tip of the Malaysian peninsula.

Singapore’s reliance on its neighbours gives them powerful leverage over it — in the past Malaysia, with whom relations are particularly prickly, has threatened to cut off water supplies across the Straits of Johor. But the sand sanctions are equally threatening.

After years of stagnation, Singapore is undergoing a construction boom, with an increased demand for sand for the manufacture of concrete. The island also has long-term plans to ease its overcrowding by reclaiming land from the sea.

At independence, Singapore was 581 sq km (224 sq miles); now it is 650 sq km and plans to acquire another 100 sq km in the next 30 years. It gets through 1.5 billion cubic metres (2 billion cubic yards) of dredged silica a year — 333 cubic metres for each man, woman and child. The Government has been forced to draw on its strategic sand reserve, which Singapore hoards as other nations keep stocks of oil and food.

There may be more to Indonesia’s position than a sudden rush of environmental conscientiousness. If Indonesia really does lose islands, it also risks losing the rights to the ocean surrounding them. “The Convention on the Law of the Sea dictates that national territory is traced according to the coastal base line, and if islands near Singapore disappear, then the base line is pulled closer to the mainland,” says Mr Hendropriyono. “As it now stands, Singapore is only 20 kilometres from Nipah island, which has been especially eroded by the loss of sand.”