Penang has a problem. Being a relatively small yet populous island, it has little land left for development. Yet the island’s government and private developers want to keep on building. So they are increasingly eyeing as yet undeveloped and underdeveloped patches of seashore and hillside. That, however, poses grave environmental…

Environmentalists on Penang have been right: a proposed reclamation project on the island’s southern side will unalterably change the local environment for the worse. But that’s fine, as far as some prominent local state officials are concerned. “We don’t deny that [the environment will be altered], but what we have…