Theory of Planned Behavior

Using the Theory of Planned Behaviour, we can attempt to analyse why citizens from both importing and exporting countries failed to take action to resolve the environmental degradation through sand dredging and land reclamation.

Theory of Planned Behaviour postulates  that in order for an individual to partake a behaviour, one needs to have a strong behavioural intention.  Three antecedents play a part in behavioural intention: a positive attitude, presence of subjective norm and perceived behavioural control.


The attitudes of sand dredging is relatively neutral except in areas affected by the consequences of it.  For Singapore, people  do not have a negative attitude towards land reclamation and may have  generally positive feelings about land reclamation because of the economic opportunities (for both importing and exporting nations) and national pride (for importing nations) that follows as mentioned in the earlier pages of Importing and Exporting Countries’ Perspectives. Furthermore, following the argument of human beings are short-term egoists, I presume people may not care the source of sand that is used in building their home or manufacturing their products because there is little or no financial or social incentives to benefit from.


For subjective norms, the general public of exporting nation may disapprove large amount of sand being exported as they could see the environment impact on their rivers and beach. However, the disapproval may be weak as the economic returns on their national income is undeniable.  In Singapore, except for a small minority of environmentalists, people generally approve land reclamation as a means for nation’s progress.


Perceived behavioural control could be very weak in both importing and exporting nations. In the exporting nations, there are both legal and illegal sand trade ongoing simultaneously. People who actively voice their dissatisfaction may be silenced, attacked by these large corporate mining companies or locked up by governments in some dominant or one-party rule nations.

Also, it is very hard for individuals and group to perceive a sense of autonomy in trying to alleviate the environmental issues in sand dredging of Mekong River. The Mekong River spans across Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam. It is hard to manage and control the resources because different government has different jurisdictions and any small actions could lead to a different action downstream in the Mekong River. This makes it extremely hard to deter excessive and unsustainable dredging. Enforcing rules and nabbing offenders will be a challenge.

In my opinion, in Singapore, the government takes a rather paternalistic approach in handling environmental activism. Many popular green initiatives are led and encouraged the government. People feel that they are unable to do much to change or lower the impact of this issue and believe that the elected government will do their best in alleviating this issue.