Application of economic institutional approaches to idle land on the islands off Mersing, Johor

This article emphasizes on the social evaluation pertaining to the problem of idle land on the islands off Mersing, Johor. Focus of the discusion is given to the ability of economic institutions to explain the problem of idle land in those islands. Economic institutions clasify the sources of the problems that lead to idle land into two: there are formal and informal sources. Formal sources refer to designation and regulation which are written acts while informal sources are mainly unwritten rules. This approach emphasizes on the attitude of actors who are in many ways being affected by formal and informal sources. The article gives attention to the causes that lead the land in the islands goes idle, unattended and uninhabited. The study was carried out on the islands of Aur, Sibu and Balang that went into the process of depopulation. The data were collected using qualitative methods. In-depth interviews with land owners have been done to identify the formal and informal sources that influence their attitude to let the land goes uncultivated. The analysis detected several factors leading to the problem of idle land in those islands, and one of them is the gazeting of the islands as marines’ parks. The gazeting exercise has lead to community depopulated thus resulting them to evacuate the island that caused the land uncultivated. This paper tries to exhibit the importance of rules or provisions which can limit the supply of land for development purposes.