by Danial Dzulkifly / The Edge Malaysia
This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on December 29, 2025 – January 4, 2026
On paper, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur are entering a new phase of sustainability consciousness. Single-use plastic bags are slowly disappearing from major supermarkets, while major policies such as the Urban Renewal Act promise “liveability” and “resilience”, and both governments have begun talking about decarbonising their growth models.
Yet on the ground, the Klang Valley tells a different story. Urban temperatures are rising, floods remain a seasonal certainty and the last pockets of forest around Shah Alam, Bukit Dinding and Ampang Jaya are being contested, one hillside approval at a time.
For environmental advocates in the Klang Valley, the core problem is the “G” in ESG — governance.
While state master plans and local council town planning often tout green ratios, community groups argue that mechanisms to protect these pieces of land are systematically dismantled through legal loopholes and opaque planning processes.
Nowhere is this starker than in the Shah Alam Community Forest (SACF). In 2021, the SACF Society discovered that the purported excision of the forest reserve was never completed, as the decision was not published in the Selangor Government Gazette as required by the National Forestry Act 1984.
However, in May 2022, the state government “quietly” published a degazettement notification for 406.22ha of Bukit Cherakah as forest reserve, backdated to take effect in November 2000, says SACF Society founder Alicia Teoh.
According to her, this manoeuvre allowed the state government to bypass critical legal safeguards, including the 2011 amendment that mandates a public inquiry for degazettement and the 1985 requirement for replacement land of equal size.
Trails and a wooden bridge that wind through Bukit Dinding, an urban green lung between Wangsa Maju and Setiawangsa. (Photo by FoBD)
“This backdating challenges the principles of good governance, transparency, accountability and public participation,” says Teoh, adding that, “if it stands, it will undermine forest conservation efforts across Malaysia”.
This led SACF and Pertubuhan Pelindung Khazanah Alam (Peka) to jointly file a judicial review application against the Selangor government to challenge the degazettement. Despite their application for judicial review being initially dismissed, the Federal Court in September 2024 granted them leave to appeal, unanimously acknowledging the profound “public importance” of the legal questions raised.
Critically, however, the court denied an interim preservation order, leaving the remaining forest vulnerable while the appeal proceeds. For Teoh, the solution lies in legal modernisation, calling for the Forestry Act to be updated to legally recognise “urban community forests”.
A similar lack of transparency plagues the eastern corridor of Selangor. The AJ Rimba Collective, led by Noina Baharuddin, points to the supposed confusing land reclassification near Zoo Negara. Their concerns heightened following the sale of an unused hilly land parcel by the Malaysian Zoological Society to a private developer, done to secure funds for the zoo’s operational survival after the pandemic.
Although the Ampang Jaya Municipal Council (MPAJ) denied claims that the land’s zoning was illegally changed from private sports and recreation to commercial in the MPAJ Local Plan 2035, the council confirmed the sale was permissible as the land was privately owned.
The Collective maintains there is a “clear lack of transparency at the local authority level”, noting that environmentally sensitive areas are often “not properly reflected” in local plans, leaving residents without adequate information on terrain constraints.
The distrust of official data used to justify development is also a recurring theme. In the case of Bukit Dinding, nestled between the dense urban neighbourhoods of Wangsa Maju and Setiawangsa, residents mobilised volunteers to conduct their own research to counter what they deemed as biased data.
Adrihazim Rashid, president of Friends of Bukit Dinding (FoBD), argues that the environmental impact assessments (EIAs) provided by developers often paint an incomplete picture because of an inherent conflict of interest. “It is done by the developers’ third-party consultants that they appoint and pay for,” he said.
To counter this, FoBD mobilised volunteers, from trail runners to retired academics, to conduct their own research. The discrepancies found were jarring.
Members of JRTI and concerned Rawang residents protest the proposed RM4.5 billion waste-to-energy plant at the Selangor State Secretariat Building on Nov 17. (Photo by JRTI)
“They say there is one type of rock. Our team found … eight different types of rocks. The EIA said there’s one stream, but our team found seven,” says Adrihazim.
This citizen-led data collection has become crucial in challenging the narrative that these developments are safe.
“These EIAs are completely inaccurate,” he asserts, pointing out that data on natural water flow is critical during a climate crisis when “all natural disasters are based on water”.
In 2022, when Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL) issued a development order for a high-rise project involving two planned 26-storey condominiums on the hill, the local communities voiced their concerns. DBKL then told the developer Nova Pesona Sdn Bhd not to start any construction work until residents are engaged and safety measures reviewed. Subsequently, DBKL announced that 25% of the site must be maintained as a green area.
A coalition of residents’ associations around the area and non-governmental organisations filed a judicial review against the development order in 2022. A stay order was issued by the KL High Court. The decision on the judicial review is still pending.
In August, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Federal Territories) Datuk Seri Dr Zaliha Mustafa announced that the Federal Territories Forestry Department is proposing to gazette two new permanent forest reserves in the capital. This proposal involves designating 20.57ha in Bukit Dinding and 5ha in Pulai Trail as permanent forest reserves.
The deforested part of SACF. (Photo by SACF)
Social function of green spaces
Beyond the technical and political arguments lies the “social” aspect of ESG and the human cost of losing green lungs.
In a city rapidly stratifying by income, forests like Bukit Dinding serve as rare equalisers. Adrihazim describes the hill as a vital “third space” where politicians, entrepreneurs and everyday people meet.
In Shah Alam, Teoh emphasises the forest as public health infrastructure, providing mental health benefits and ecological services that landscaped parks cannot.
Yet this vital asset is being eroded by the dilution of “open space” definitions, where it is supposedly transferred to private entities or shrunk by including road verges, grassy atolls and vertical off-ground greening, which should not qualify as genuine open space, says AJ Rimba’s Noina.
“There is a growing pattern of land zoned for open space use being transferred to private entities under the commercial zoning category,” she says. For instance, some of the open spaces are turned into privately owned sports and recreational facilities, she claims. Another example is the land around Zoo Negara.
As the Klang Valley faces the compounding threats of the urban heat island effect and flash floods, these groups argue that the state’s planning governance needs a fundamental overhaul. For Noina, the solution lies in restoring democratic accountability.
“What truly needs to change is the restoration of local government elections,” she says. Despite the difficult legal battles, FoBD remains optimistic about the possibility of collaboration.
“If the government can come out and work together and figure a way out of this, I think it would be a great story for them to tell also,” says FOBD’s Adrihazim. Until then, the protection of Selangor and Kuala Lumpur’s remaining green lungs relies less on policy papers and more on the vigilance of the communities living in their shadow.
Mounting waste in Klang Valley
Some local communities are also concerned about the alleged disregard for community concerns and lack of transparency regarding large-scale waste management projects.
For residents in Rawang, the issue is the perceived sacrifice of their community to solve the Klang Valley’s growing solid waste problem.
Abdul Hanan Abd Mokti, spokesman for Jaringan Rawang Tolak Insinerator (JRTI), expressed the sense of marginalisation felt by residents. “The folks of Batu Arang feel that the value of their life, their safety, their family health, their livelihood is cheaper and collateral damage against the rest of the state.”
The JRTI is fighting the proposed RM4.5 billion Sultan Idris Shah Green Energy Plant (SISGEP) near the former coal-mining town of Batu Arang, citing risks from geological instability (mine tunnels) and health (dioxins).
Despite submitting over 12,150 objections to the detailed EIA in June 2025, official meetings with representatives provided no meaningful answers, says Hanan.
“We were hoping they would shed light on the technology and business model, and some sense of assurance, but we received no answers,” he says, adding that the authorities have employed the derogatory term NIMBY (not in my backyard) to dismiss their concerns.
Hanan challenged the logic of the site selection. “Why not build somewhere in PJ or Shah Alam — places that generate the most waste and are more affluent?” he questions.
He argues that the project lacked justification when the distant Bukit Tagar sanitary landfill has ample capacity, noting the cost difference to send waste there was merely 35 sen per tonne. KDEB Waste Management Sdn Bhd, which manages domestic and commercial waste for the state, is currently the project manager for SISGEP.
In response, Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Amirudin Shari stresses that SISGEP is a modern waste-to-energy facility and not a traditional incinerator. He also says the state is studying a proposal to combine the Rawang project with its Jeram WTE project, according to reports.
The Jeram plant, which houses two WTE incinerators, will handle up to 3,000 tonnes of waste daily once it is operational by early 2026. This plant is managed by another Selangor government-owned subsidiary, Worldwide Holdings Bhd.
