Speech by Minister Desmond Lee at the launch of the Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan
Apr 28, 2024
Good morning and thank you for inviting me to join you for the launch of the Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan (STCP).
I am happy to see many familiar faces, as well as some new ones, here this morning. Even the new ones, which may be new to me, but many of you have been in this field of conservation for many years.
Standing on the shoulders of giants
First, I would first like to thank and congratulate Andie and Sankar - the editors - and close to 40 contributors of this comprehensive plan. When I first learnt about the Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan from Andie and Sankar, I was encouraged, looking at the list of contributors, to see a new generation stepping up to take the lead on this plan, mentored by senior members of the community. The Conservation Plan represents the collective efforts of our nature community to document the current state of biodiversity here on our island city state, Singapore, and to map the progress made in nature conservation, as well as the challenges ahead of us, — allowing us to reflect and chart the way forward.
The passion and support of the community remains the cornerstone of nature conservation in Singapore. When Singapore was newly independent and undergoing rapid development and urbanisation, our pioneer conservationists paved the way, through their tireless commitment to biodiversity conservation. For instance, Richard Hale, the late Subaraj Rajathurai and others from the Nature Society Singapore (NSS) discovered Sungei Buloh in the 1980s as a haven for migratory shorebirds and worked together – they worked tirelessly and advocated passionately – and persuaded the Government to conserve the area. This culminated in the opening of Sungei Buloh Nature Park in 1993 and its gazetting as a Nature Reserve in 2002. The conserving of Sungei Buloh has allowed for long-term monitoring, habitat enhancement, and outreach efforts for the migratory shorebirds that visit our coasts. In recent times, these are supported by our community partners such as Movin Nyanasengaran and Keita Sin from the Bird Society of Singapore, who partner NParks in WadersWatch, an outreach programme for the general public to get to know our shorebirds. They are among the young voices who contributed to the report, representing a new generation of nature stewards. This bodes well for our vision to transform Singapore into a City in Nature and I look forward to working closely together with you, carrying on our conversations in a meaningful way, and to better understand each other’s views, challenges, and aspirations, and work towards a common goal.
Over the years, we have established several platforms for collaboration and dialogue. For example, the Biodiversity Roundtable, which is made up of more than 20 non-governmental organisations and NParks. They jointly organise the annual Festival of Biodiversity, which is taking place next month at One Punggol. Started in 2012, this event is on its 13th run, and fosters a sense of appreciation among Singaporeans for our natural heritage. We also regularly tap on the expertise and experience of our nature community, both academia and citizen scientists who are passionate about Singapore’s biodiversity and have dedicated much of their time to learning and documenting their observations and findings. For example, NParks’ Ecological Profiling Exercise (EPE) was carried out in consultation with a 14-member Scientific Advisory Panel that comprises academics and experts from the nature community like Professor Koh Lian Pin from NUS Centre for Nature-based Climate Solutions and Lim Kim Chuah from the NSS Bird Group, who is also my mentor and teacher. There are also Wildlife Working Groups, Friends of the Parks communities, and many engagement platforms, where we seek to better understand and incorporate the views of our nature community in the work that we do.
Thriving against the odds
Indeed, we have come a long way in our nature conservation efforts. Despite our very small land size and unique circumstances as the only island city-state in the world, it is remarkable that we are home to rich biodiversity, as pointed out in the Terrestrial Conservation Plan. So there’s much to celebrate, much to protect, and much to worry about. This did not happen by chance, but because of the careful and deliberate planning and conservation efforts by agencies, in close partnership with our nature community.
As part of our City in Nature strategies, we are working to conserve and extend Singapore’s natural capital island wide. In addition to the four gazetted Nature Reserves, we have established a network of nature park networks surrounding them, serving as complementary habitats and green buffers for the urban landscape around them, while providing opportunities for Singaporeans to connect with nature. It’s quite unlike larger countries where nature thrives mostly outside of cities, and there we worry about urban sprawl. In Singapore, our most prized biodiversity areas are in the heart of the city, surrounded by all of us in the urban setting, and possibly impeding flora dispersal as well as the movement of fauna. Hence, for us, the challenge is not just sprawl, but connectivity.
Last year, we completed the Central Catchment Nature Park Network, comprising more than 370 ha of nature parks that buffer Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. We have also established the Sungei Buloh Nature Park Network, comprising nature parks like Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat; and also launched the Labrador Nature Park Network. The fact that we’ve turned the Mandai Mangrove and Mudflat from its earlier uses to a nature park, because of its critical importance to the survival of Sungei Buloh, and its role as an important stop point for the East Asian Australasian flyway, is testament to science, to data, to collaboration internationally, and through a deep emphasis on science in our land use planning. And I want to thank my NParks colleagues, as well as the Nature Society and our nature community for helping provide that data together.
We have also strengthened ecological connectivity through a network of ecological corridors comprising nature corridors and nature ways, such as Lornie Nature Corridor, which we greened up during the pandemic years. When I joined MND more than 10 years ago, the idea of nature ways was in fact met with a bit of scientific scepticism. All this was just a motivator for us to interrogate, to get data, and validate, if they are indeed effective as ecological connectors. And I think science has shown that it is important, in a city like ours.
These are coupled with habitat restoration and species recovery efforts. For example, NParks’ Forest Restoration Action Plan seeks to strengthen the ecological and climate resilience of our native forests by restoring the ecological processes in these areas. Nature groups have contributed significantly to this initiative through organising and participating in tree-planting and invasive species management activities in our forests. We are also committed to the conservation of our protected wildlife species and take a zero-tolerance stance on the poaching and illegal trade of wildlife.
Our combined efforts have helped ensure our native biodiversity thrives. In the last 14 years, more than 320 plant species were rediscovered or found, including 5 species that are endemic or found only in Singapore and nowhere else in the world. This may be surprising to some, considering Singapore’s small size and highly urban environment, but it demonstrates that careful planning and protection of greenery, such as our Nature Reserves, can provide important refugia for biodiversity. We have also had success in our species recovery efforts, such as the construction of bat houses on Pulau Ubin to supplement available roosting sites for the nationally threatened Lesser Asian False Vampire Bat. Thanks to such conservation efforts, this species is now a little less at risk of extinction, but we must never let our guard down.
Our first sighting of the Raffles Banded Langur on the Eco-link @ BKE in Oct last year also demonstrates that our ecological connectivity efforts are slowly paying off! These langurs are known to only reside in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, with the last sighting of one in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve as far back as 1987. This sighting via arboreal camera traps that we deployed on the Eco-link is an encouraging sign that the langurs could be using the Eco-link to expand their range and habitat, and that could ensure a higher chance of survival.
Furthermore, a recent study highlighted an overall downward revision of the estimated extinction rates associated with the loss of Singapore’s original forests from 73% in a 2003 paper to 37%. Not encouraging but comforting. Nevertheless, a warning and reminder for us to keep looking forward.
Protecting our natural heritage amidst land constraints
Our efforts do not stop here. As an island city-state, we will face increasingly acute land-use pressures that will continue to require careful stewardship of our land. Following the conclusion of the Long-Term Plan Review – or what we used to call the Concept Plan Review – we do that every 10 years and we try to plan 50 years ahead of us; many of you and many other Singaporeans shared your hopes and aspirations for Singapore in the next 50 years. Following on that, we have now embarked on the Master Plan Review. We do that every five years, distilling the strategies from the Long-Term Plan Review, then to guide developments over the next 10 to 15 years. This work is critical so that we can understand and meet the changing aspirations and needs of our current and future generations.
Through our engagements with Singaporeans, they shared the importance of green and blue spaces, and nature as a form of respite from the urban environment. Many tell us they like our city to thrive in nature.
But yet at the same time, the pressures on land use will grow on many fronts, based on trends, trajectories and based on what people tell us about their needs and aspiration. Housing – different groups wanting different kinds of housing and more healthcare, preparing for an ageing society, a new frontier for jobs, preparing for climate change, education and skills, and generally to meet the growing needs and aspirations of Singaporeans, which will require land.
To ensure that the long-term development of the one and only island city-state in the world, Singapore takes place sensitively, with nature and heritage at the same level as other development needs, our planning approach has to take into account the EPE findings to identify core biodiversity areas as well as important ecological corridors. We also identify complementary uses for our green spaces for recreation, education, and outreach where possible. However, given our physical constraints, after exhausting our land intensification and recycling strategies, there may be some greenfield sites that might be needed to meet our land use needs. Any decision to proceed is made only after very careful study of the trade-offs and alternatives. Where it is necessary to proceed, these developments are subject to greater scrutiny, with mitigation measures put in place as part of our EIA process. The nature community is also our partner in this—we thank many of you who have taken time and effort to provide suggestions under our EIA process.
We also take a science-based approach to biodiversity conservation. In the third and latest edition of our Singapore Red List, more than 7,300 species were assessed. This is an almost three-fold increase from the 2,900 species in our second edition! We will continue to use this list as an authoritative reference for the conservation status of our local biodiversity, to guide the planning and prioritisation of habitat restoration and species recovery efforts in Singapore.
Continuing the conversation
The Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan and its nine recommendations will serve as a very important resource, just like the Blue Plan launched a few years ago, as we work on the conservation of our natural heritage. We will study all the Conservation Plan’s recommendations carefully. For example, one of the recommendations highlighted the need to protect and enhance connectivity. We agree that it is important to strengthen terrestrial and aquatic ecological connectivity, and better integrate it into our upstream planning processes. Findings from our Ecological Profiling Exercise will contribute to this, while our efforts to incorporate multi-tiered planting into our streetscapes to form Nature Ways and establish Nature Corridors between core habitats will help enhance ecological connectivity.
We will also continue to engage our wider nature community, on advancing the biodiversity conservation efforts in Singapore while balancing our land use needs. In fact, science is an important process that helps us in our land use planning and nature conservation, but equally important is the need to strengthen community understanding. We are first an island city state with intense land use pressures, with needs and wants that are growing, and we need to find trade-offs and ensure that nature and heritage have an important place at the same level as every other need. Hence our efforts at growing the Nature Kakis, Community in Bloom, Every Child a Seed, and efforts by our partners in the nature community to do wider outreach in our community, in our heartlands, and so on. It is important so that Singaporeans truly understand why land use decisions are made as such and why we keep some areas for greenery, for nature, why we protect some areas from what would otherwise be good uses for needs and wants. So I urge all of you to join us so that we mainstream this understanding of our City in Nature, and what it really means. It sounds good, but to get there are many trade-offs and conflicting needs and wants, and in some of the conversations that we have, we see the conflict.
Let me just close by echoing Professor Leo Tan’s words in his foreword for this Conservation Plan. The Plan is truly a labour of love from the nature community, and it represents the hopes, dreams and aspirations of conservationists, scientists, and environmentalists.
Together, we have come far in conserving our natural heritage in Singapore. Lots done, lots more to do. I look forward to continuing this journey with all of you. Let us continue to be good stewards of our land and waters, and help achieve our vision of becoming a City in Nature.
Congratulations once again to our editors and contributors.