Recently, there has been a lot of commotion in the nature circles over the turning of Mandai into a "spa retreat", not least by a long, rather scathing post by Joseph Lai. As I did my field work in Nee Soon (and hearing the Seletar Range firing away) I thought about the multiple land use in Singapore.
Singapore is a small country, and so the government has had to find multiple uses of a specific piece of land in the urban (High-rise homes or offices built over Multi-storey carparks over shopping centres over underground MRT stations)and the less urban (I refuse to use "country-side" or "rural" to describe any place in Singapore Island) areas (SAF training ground and nature reserves and tourist spots). But the contention many have is that what works in an urban setting may not work in a different, more natural setting, especially with regards to wildlife where you cannot plan things. Sure you can plan to build a resort with a good forest setting and a way to control the bugs, but will the bug-control result in the death of the forest and giving way to stale, sterile, ornamental plantation? (Yes I said it. I have a disdain for all the "touristy" flower places and nicely manicured, "planned" parks which are not natural at all) You cannot transplant animals into tiny cramped environment and expect them to behave as they would in their natural, wide-ranging habitats.
I started my conservation journey inspired by Dr. Jane Goodall's work at the forests of Gombe, how she managed to find a balance for the people there, between livelihood and protecting the forest. Singapore may be harder, it's too small, and our forests, frankly are not sustainable on their own, and need constant care. What's bugging me now, are the questions: Does this point of balance even exist in Singapore? Or have we passed it in 1850?
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Hi, it good to think about hard questions and I hope you find it as you go about studying - not about nature, but with nature. I am sure you will find the answers sooner than you think if you are sincerely looking for them. Please do not think that there is 'no sustainability' of our forest for 'being small'. Sustainability is a definition referring to current state and keeping it. It is not a word you would use correctly to understand the life story of a living entity. I stress 'living'. If you see it as something that evolve (as what nature does), it does not actually 'dies' but live on beyond the scale of time that our normal human faculty of sense is generally unaccustomed to accepting, esp. when we only sees our own prime needs and wants. Importantly, nature lends itself to a different form in the short term, but then beyond this scale of time, you will find it change to a renew state with new conditions and thrive. What I am saying is - nature is tenacious and always change. Yours is not a technical question but a philosophical one. If you read poetry, you will find your questions answered there. I ended my essay 'Forest Science Crapped in Singapore' with reference to the heart. That's what I hope good young people will use - not just brains in sciences. I hope I am of help at this moment in time to you. Thanks for asking. It's great.
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