Glamping has come to a Port Dickson forest, giving Brian Khow, a nature-lover concerned with environmental justice, pause to reflect on such enterprises.
I WAS SHOCKED by the recent development in a forest reserve located along the border of Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, and Melaka. A private recreation facility has in the last few months emerged next to a beach in that forest.
Made up of luxury tents, campsites, and a café, this glamping operation now occupies a section of the beach, with fenced boundaries and facilities reserved for paying patrons.
(Feature pic: What does comfort in tents mean for our relationship with nature? | image by Sharon Chin)
At first, I did not really understand what glamping meant. After looking it up, I learned that it is formed from ‘glamour’ and ‘camping’. It turns camping—an activity that once meant uncertainty, simplicity, wildness, and risk—into an experience that is comfortable, controlled, and easy to consume.
As someone interested in sociology, I began to think about the deeper meaning behind all this, and how the idea of recreation has changed over time.
Throughout history, humans and nature have been closely connected and have shaped each other. However, under the fast pace and heavy pressure of modern life, ‘returning to nature’ has come to be imagined as a form of escape through recreation.
People go to forests and beaches to ‘recharge’, and this now feels natural and normal. Yet this way of relating to nature is not something that has always existed.
The beginnings of ‘recreation’
Modern ideas of recreation developed together with capitalist society. In pre-capitalist times, most people worked in farming or handicrafts. Work and daily life, production and nature, were closely connected. There was no need to deliberately ‘go to nature to relax’.
In Britain seaside travel before the 18th century was expensive and mostly limited to the upper and middle classes. Many believed that sea water and sea air were good for health, giving rise to what was known as sea bathing.
With the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, railways and other transport systems expanded rapidly. Coastlines that once required long journeys could now be reached within hours. Seaside areas were no longer only for elites, but became short holiday destinations for ordinary workers on weekends or public holidays.
Seeking escape
The working class was encouraged to travel to the seaside to rest by employers, state policies, and the growing tourism industry. This was supported by media and popular ideas about health and leisure.
With the increase in visitors, capital followed, building accommodation, food services, and entertainment facilities. Fishing villages such as Blackpool, Scarborough, and Brighton quickly developed into seaside resort towns for the general public.
Recreation became something organised, managed, and limited in time. This was the result of a clear separation between ‘work’ and ‘rest’.
This example from Britain is relevant because similar patterns of coastal development were later introduced and expanded in Malaysia, first during colonial rule and more significantly after independence.
This is because the post-colonial state adopted a capitalist development model focused on tourism, infrastructure, and coastal urbanisation.
Port Dickson for one, gradually developed into a seaside holiday town, and the coastal road from Port Dickson to the forest reserve became lined with resorts, especially from the 1980s onwards, as tourism expanded.
A deliberate change
Here, nature was not simply ‘discovered’, but reshaped into a space for consumption. Large-scale construction damaged the environment, and crowds made the recreational experience less relaxing and harder to enjoy.
As a result, some areas that were previously undeveloped became even more valuable, particularly for those with the financial means to access them.
It is these undeveloped areas that have been repackaged into more refined, more expensive spaces that are only accessible to groups that could afford it.
A cultivated experience
This glamping facility is a clear example. Located within a forest reserve, it occupies a stretch of beach of around 500 metres.
Here, development is presented at a ‘higher level’, setting itself apart from large-scale projects that openly damage the environment. Instead, it offers a carefully curated version of nature, one that appears more tasteful, controlled, and high-end, yet remains shaped by the same logic of consumption and exclusivity.
Rapid urbanisation over the past few decades has created nostalgia and longing for nature. In turn, natural landscapes have increasingly been turned into commodities, largely driven by the consumption patterns of the urban middle class, although they are also accessible to other groups with sufficient purchasing power.
Comfort-seeking city dwellers
The younger generation who grew up in cities often enjoys better living conditions than their parents, but they are also more used to comfort and convenience. With the influence of media and social platforms, going into nature is promoted as healthy, meaningful, and even environmentally friendly.
In the age of social media and ‘check-in’ culture, nature has become an important background for content creation. Photos taken in forests or by the sea are not only records of experience, but also ways to display lifestyle and collect likes.
At the same time, some young people who are either unemployed or just entering the workforce may still access these spaces, especially those who receive financial support from their families.
While glamping is generally positioned as an expensive and curated experience, it can still function as a ‘middle-level’ consumption option for certain groups.
These privately developed leisure spaces also attempt to shape an aspirational sense of taste and lifestyle among young people in this transitional stage of life, one that often exceeds their actual economic position. Carefully branded and well-designed glamping sites thus become one of the ideal consumption choices.
For developers seeing opportunities, nature is selected and redesigned into recreation spaces with stable electricity, water supply, toilets, food, coffee, safety, hygiene, and privacy. Different levels of “atmosphere” and “taste” are added, turning nature into a space only suitable for the “right” kind of people.
The core of glamping is not getting close to nature, but domesticating nature. The design and marketing of glamping facilities clearly reflect young people’s desire to “return to nature.”
Capitalist roots
This article aims to show how our everyday lifestyles are closely linked to the way capital works. Capitalist mass production requires large amounts of raw materials and creates large amounts of waste, which already harms nature.
The consumption and recreation that come with this system place even more pressure on the environment, reducing nature’s ability to care for humans and support future generations.
If commodities cannot be sold, they cannot be turned into profit. Wages, business operations, and even the economy itself are affected. To prevent this, consumption must be constantly encouraged.
One way to do this is by shaping what people desire, using advertising and social media to strengthen these desires.
Setting itself apart
When large and traditional recreation facilities—such as mass seaside resorts, theme parks, or holiday complexes—start to lose their appeal, more refined and ‘different’ options like glamping facilities appear as alternatives.
These sites are carefully branded and designed, but they also enclose natural areas for the use of a few, turning shared resources into private spaces. Some people use this type of consumption to show that they love nature more than others and are more environmentally conscious.
But the key question remains: are private recreation facilities built inside forest reserves, and described as “low-impact”, really more sustainable than large resorts? The answer is likely no.
The drivers
These projects do not challenge the economic logic that harms nature. Instead, they give the impression that choosing a ‘greener’ or more exclusive form of consumption is enough, while the shared natural environment is increasingly controlled and restricted.
In nature reserves, human activity is supposed to follow the needs of environmental protection. Yet this logic is slowly reversed, with nature making way for human recreation and private enjoyment.
This reversal is a form of greenwashing. Glamping does not reduce human control over nature; it only makes that control look softer, more attractive, and more acceptable.
Philosopher Judith Butler reminds us that life itself is vulnerable. From the moment we are born, we depend on the care of others to survive. Vulnerability is not a weakness, but a shared condition.
Because we depend on one another, we have a responsibility to respond to vulnerability, not to ignore or exploit it.
Nature has long taken care of humans, providing air, water, food, and maintaining balance in the environment. But humans often take from nature without regard, reserving it for the private use of a few.
This constant extraction weakens nature’s ability to recover and regenerate. Over time, the systems that once cared for people may fail to support future generations, leaving them vulnerable.
The ethical problem of glamping facilities and its ilk becomes clear here. By enclosing parts of nature for private use, these sites treat the environment as a backdrop for taste and lifestyle rather than as a living system that requires care.
Nature is no longer a shared common where humans and the environment coexist. Instead, it is consumed, enclosed, and made exclusive, reducing its ability to support life for those who come after us.
Time for a reset
Behind the lifestyles we take for granted lie deep economic forces. If we truly hope to stay close to nature in the future, now is the time to rethink these everyday practices.
Changing the entire system is not easy. But at the very least, we can begin by pausing to reflect and to ask hard questions—especially of those who hold power, including government authorities and the operators of glamping sites.
Only then can we stop treating nature merely as something to consume, and instead give it the care and respect we should.
Brian Khow calls himself an ordinary person who is interested in how capitalism, patriarchy, and racism shape social organisation, ideologies, and culture in everyday life.
In this commentary, the author used ChatGPT to help him proofread the text. The commentary went through 3 rounds of editing with the Macaranga editor without use of AI.
[Edited by SL Wong]
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