Remarks by Minister Desmond Lee at the Book Launch of Tim’s Adventure
Dec 24, 2021
A very good afternoon to everyone, I am delighted to join you at the book launch of Tim’s Adventure today.
Tim’s Adventure
Let me start by congratulating Rhaimie on the launch of your book,
Tim’s Adventure. This is the first English and Malay bilingual publication supported by the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism that explores marine life from the perspective of sea turtles. Many of you would have read the news recently about Singaporeans working together to ensure that the young Hawksbill hatchlings affected by the dazzling lights of our cityscape, turn back to the sea. And I think that story was heart-warming even though many of us were perplexed and concerned about how confused these Hawksbill Turtles were because of our urban cityscape.
In this book, Tim, the main character in the story, is one such Hawksbill Turtle, which is a rare turtle species found in Singapore. Books like this are a great way for our children to learn about the wonders of nature, while also improving their language skills in both English and their Mother Tongue. It is not easy to get people to read a physical book, even though physical books will continue to be relevant and foundational for civilisation and literature. It is also not easy in this day and age of social media and devices to get people to settle down in a couch, or on a bed with a child to read a book. But it is vitally important to keep fighting to keep the book alive, to keep literature going strong, and to keep literature and our Mother Tongue available and strong, because Mother Tongues are a strong link to our culture, to our roots, to our values, to our history, and deepen our identity as who we are as Singaporeans.
Along with the book, your team has also developed an animation and theme song, to help children learn in a fun and interactive way. As a father of three young children myself, I believe that the book will be a very enjoyable read for both parents and children to learn about our marine life together, and another way for our parents to engage their children, excite them and energise them, spend quality time with our children, over a wonderful book like this. I would like to congratulate the publishing house, Ungu Pen, for not just publishing a very colourful and vibrant book that is easy and accessible for children and parents alike, but also leveraging off social media, technology, Augmented Reality (AR), so that you connect the next generation who are really fish in water when it comes to digital devices, and the internet and the media, with that foundational quality of a book, that I think will be evergreen.
Now in this story, we join Tim in his adventure from the Sisters’ Islands and back. Back in 2014, we established the Sisters’ Islands Marine Park to protect the rich marine life found in our waters, some of the busiest waterways in the world, and to provide more opportunities for marine conservation in partnership with our community. And in 2018, we also created the first home for our turtles on Sisters’ Islands, which provides a safe environment for our critically endangered turtle species. I’m happy that this book plays an important part in helping to raise awareness among our young readers, about the importance of protecting our marine life in Singapore. Something that we take for granted, and never believed it exist in Singapore, but so rich and precious.
Importance of Environmental Conservation
So for our young readers, I hope you will enjoy reading this book, and re-reading it and re-reading over and over again, and learning all about the interesting marine life that we have surrounding Singapore. We are a very small island. But we have about 120 species of reef fish, more than 200 sponge species and 12 seagrass species found in our waters. Many of our native animal species, such as the Green Tree Snails and the Singapore Freshwater Crabs, can be found only in Singapore and nowhere else in the world! Something we can be very proud of.
We are adding more nature parks, more green spaces or blue spaces to provide our animals with more homes to live in, where they can look for food and water, and for our children here, they can also play with their friends. We are working together with our community to protect our animals and plants in our marine and nature parks. In fact, we’re not just protecting these natural areas – we are making special efforts to protect our rare animals and plants, by bringing them back into their original habitats, to their original homes. We are also reaching out to involve more people in our conservation efforts to restore and enhance our key habitats, including our coral reefs. We must do our best to take care of the plants and animals that, like us, call Singapore home.
But even as we work hard to protect our plants and animals, as well as our green spaces and our blue spaces, we will also need to continue to find a balance, an equilibrium, and find space for other needs – such as for your homes, including for our young children, when you grow up, you would want a home of your own too, for your family and for yourselves; your schools that you will attend and the public transport networks that travel around it. And we have this obligation to balance all these needs carefully to plan not just for today, or tomorrow, but for the long term for our children and their children in turn, so that we can continue grow Singapore and keep it green for all of them.
Conclusion
Allow me to conclude by saying a very big and heartfelt thank you to Rhaimie, Rizal, Maria and team, as well as the Lee Kuan Yew Fund for Bilingualism, for working on this very precious and meaningful project.
Our rich marine biodiversity is one thing that makes Singapore so special, and every one of us has an important part to play in protecting our marine life. So let us all work together to make Singapore our City in Nature, so that our children can enjoy living alongside our native wildlife for many years to come.
So on that note, congratulations to our author and our publisher, and may this book add to the rich literature of this precious City in Nature. Congratulations and a Happy New Year.