Marine cadastre legal framework for Malaysia

The coastal Malays in particular regarded the seas as natural appurtenances to the land they occupy. Sovereign nations exercised absolute sovereignty and jurisdiction in seas covering the whole of sovereignty area of Malaysia. The seas surrounding the land played a significant role in the defence, economic, and political matters of the nation concerned. The sovereignty of nation depend on concept of unity between land and water expressed by the Malay word ‘tanahair’ which literally means land and water is depict to the meaning of native land. Such was already the significance and appreciation of the seas in this region. As early as 1276, during the reign of Sultan Muhammed Shah the first sovereign of the Malacca Sultanate, it was found that the Malays had already designed a set of laws of the sea applicable in sea areas within the jurisdiction of the Malacca Sultanate. These laws were referred to as the Malaca Code. Furthermore, introduction of marine cadastre is a new kind of sea uses, spatial extension of ongoing sea uses and the need to better protect and better arrangement of marine parcel for various users, as well as between the users and the environment. Marine cadastre legal framework is the process to define the marine alienation and marine spatial planning to allocate space for specific uses which can help to avoid user conflicts, to improve the management of marine spatial claim and sustain an ecosystem-based management of ocean.