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Land clearance is underway at a 10-acre site on Jalan Likas, alongside the tidal creek that feeds Kota Kinabalu's only remaining mangrove. An environmental impact assessment was approved for the project. The public cannot read it.

The development, The V by Jesselton, is a joint project between Jesselton Waterfront Sdn Bhd and Yayasan Sabah. 

It broke ground on 6 October 2025 and will deliver 1,754 residential suites, offices and retail space at a total development value of RM1.5 billion. 

A tidal creek runs along the site boundary before discharging into Likas Bay. The same creek connects inland to the Kota Kinabalu Wetland, the last remaining mangrove habitat on the entire Kota Kinabalu coastline. 

It was designated a Ramsar site on 22 October 2016 and is one of only two urban Ramsar wetlands in the world. 

It supports three globally threatened species, including the critically endangered Bruguiera hainesii. 

Seawater moves up the creek at high tide and drains back at low tide, sustaining the estuarine conditions on which this ecosystem depends. 

The creek is the direct hydrological link between the development site and the wetland.

The baseline condition of this system is already fragile. 

A 2020 study by researchers from the Borneo Marine Research Institute at Universiti Malaysia Sabah recorded elevated ammonia concentrations across the Likas Bay coastal zone, attributed to urban wastewater. 

The estuary into which the creek drains is under existing nutrient stress.

Land clearance is the phase of highest sediment risk in any coastal development. Vegetation removal exposes bare soil across the full site. 

Without adequate controls, surface runoff during rainfall carries eroded material across the site boundary and into the creek, from where tidal movement carries it toward the wetland or out to Likas Bay. 

The EIA for the project, prepared by Envsolve Sdn Bhd and approved by the Department of Environment on 23 December 2025, was classified as a normal EIA under the Environmental Quality (Prescribed Activities) (Environmental Impact Assessment) Order 2015. 

That classification places it outside mandatory public display. What environmental conditions were imposed, what mitigation was required and who is responsible for enforcing compliance are not publicly known.

That gap matters. The Order gives the Director General discretion to require public display for a normal EIA where circumstances justify it. 

A development site whose drainage connects directly to one of only two urban Ramsar wetlands in the world is precisely the kind of circumstance where that discretion could reasonably have been exercised. It was not. 

The people most qualified to assess the risks, including the Sabah Wetlands Conservation Society, ornithological groups and university researchers who have studied this ecosystem for decades, have no access to the document that sets out what protections are in place. 

They cannot verify what is being monitored, what thresholds apply or whether the conditions imposed are adequate for a site in this location.

Three questions should be answered publicly before land clearance progresses further.

Will Jesselton Waterfront Sdn Bhd or the Department of Environment Sabah voluntarily release the full EIA report so that residents and independent researchers can understand what conditions were imposed and how compliance is being monitored? 

What sediment and surface water controls are currently in place during land clearance, and who is responsible for enforcing them on site?

What water quality monitoring is being carried out in the creek during this phase, and who receives the results?

Public land alongside a creek connected to a Ramsar wetland carries a higher standard of environmental accountability than most development sites. 

Releasing the EIA report would be a straightforward way to demonstrate that standard is being met. 

The Kota Kinabalu Wetland has survived this long because people paid attention to it. These questions are how that attention continues.

Vigilant Egret

There was an occasion when the KK Wetlands took a developer to court and won to prevent the area being affected. – Ed

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