Abstract
Peat Swamp Forest is a unique ecological unit found almost exclusively in Insular Southeast Asia. Ecologically, the peat swamp area has been the least favorable environment for human habitation. Economically, the area and its forest has had no goods or valuables to attract people from outside. Thus it has remained uninhabited.
The situation has changed since the mid-nineteenth century. Beginning with Singapore's expansion and its demand for forest resources, the progress of “modernization” has led people to seek unrealized, hence untouched, resources in the area.
Today, the area is being widely, rapidly and unrestrictedly reclaimed for new resources, mostly as farmland for commercial coconut cultivation. The policies or norms of development in this area, which has hitherto had no long-lasting relation with human activity, lie open to criticism.
