The Straits Times, 13 September 1998
Nature reserve land sacrificed for water storage tanks. Sungei Punggol mangroves to make way for homes. St John's Island to be a detention facility. Are the days of nature conservation numbered? Or have the critics missed the woods for the trees?
By Dominic Nathan
In land-scare Singapore, flora and fauna do not hold freehold tenure over any spot, even protected nature reserve land.
National and strategic interests dictate otherwise. Social and economic needs take precedence and the Government adopts a pragmatic approach to nature conservation.
For example, in building the Bukit Timah express way in 1985, a 50-m wide swathe was cut through the forested catchment.
This year, 11 ha of nature reserve land next to Upper Peirce reservoir had to be sacrificed to build giant storage tanks.
In recent letters to The Straits Times Forum Page, the Urban Redevelopment Authority has been held responsible for these encroachments into the nature reserves and the loss of other green pockets across the island.
With every loss of a nature area, it is accused of taking the easy option.
Mr Tan See Nin, URA's head of strategic planning, believes that the critics have missed the woods for the trees.
"But those cities do not have to worry about land for military training or water catchment," he notes.
In Singapore, every need has to be seen to and squeezed within what is available and done in a manner that still offers the population a quality of life that compares with the best of any modern metropolis.
His colleague, Mr Seow Kah Ping, head of the local planning, argues that while URA is not anti-conservation, the reality is that it is not going to be possible to preserve every single nature pocket if the planned four million people or more are to live, work and play comfortably on this island.
Even though 3,130 ha or 5 per cent of Singapore's land area has been set aside for conservation, Mr Seow says: "Future development cannot be entirely precluded given that there could be other more important competing uses for such land, particularly if they are of national or strategic interest, for example, housing and infrastructure needs."
To begin with, URA does not have all of Singapore's 645 sq km to plan with.
* About 20 per cent is set aside for military training grounds. Some of this doubles as catchment area which occupies a total of 40 per cent.
* Singapore has the highest density of airports in the world. Its five civilian and military fields impose height restrictions on buildings, practically across the island.
* Outside of the Central Business District, where skyscrapers are allowed to reach 280 m, most of the island is restricted to about 40m or 11 or 12 storeys.
* Sewage treatment plants, refuse incinerators and industries with chimneys also restrict what, if anything, can be built in their vicinity and how high they can go.
When the space, constraints are factored in, just over 50 per cent of Singapore is left to be taken up by homes, schools, hospitals, offices, factories, roads and parks.
By the year 2010, about 67 per cent of Singapore will be urbanised, reveals URA.
"If we build at a low density and preserve avery nature area that a migratory bird decides to adopt, we will exhaust our land banks prematurely," says Mr Tan.
It is difficult to argue against these cold hard facts.
But if even the 2,800 ha of nature reserve land is not sacrosanct, then why draw up a plan that commits the Government to protecting 19 sites covering 3,130 ha?
As part of a blueprint to turn Singapore into a model environment city, the Green Plan, outlining nature areas to be protected, was adopted five years ago.
Nature-lovers have since been calling for the boundaries of the 19 sites to be demarcated clearly and the sites given some form of legal protection, similar to the nature reserves.
To date, nothing has happened and no one can say if it will.
When ask about this, URA says that the National Parks Board (NParks) is better placed to answer these questions.
Nparks chief executive officer Tan Wee Kiat explains that the board's primary responsibility is the nature reserves.
Although Nparks has been designated the scientific authority on nature conservation for Green Plan, its role "is strictly a technical one, confined to ensuring the health of nature areas".
"To this end, Nparks has been documenting the biodiversity of nature areas so that when consulted by the planning authorites over developments that may affect these areas, we are able to provide the necessary technical information and assessment of impact to enable them to make informed decisions."
This suggests that unless an designated a nature reserve by URA, any role Nparks may have in conserving it is limited.
Where does Green Plan Stand?
Five years on and where does Green Plan stand?
Dr Ho Hua Chew, chairman of the conservation committee of the Nature Society (Singapore), says that at least six out of the19 sites are threatened by various development projects, from shore reclamation to the building of houses, expressways and satellite stations.
But as the experience of the nature reserves has shown, its legal status is no guarantee of protection.
To further complicate matters, URA declared five southern a Marine Nature Area in 1996.
Again Nparks was roped in. All development proposals for the Sisters' Islands, St John's Island, Lazarus Island, Kusu Island and Pulau Seringat were to be assessed by the board.
Till today, no one is quite sure what this means and neither does anyone know the extent of protection the islands, reefs and waters around it are entitled to.
In June, the Home Affairs Ministry said it was converting some buildings on St John's Island into a temporary detention facility for illegal immigrants and hardcore drug addicts.
And once the facility starts receiving inmates the public would no longer be allowed to visit the island.
Turning St John's Island into a tropical Alcatraz is probably not what nature lovers had in mind when the island was declared part of the Marine Nature Area.
The main concern for the islands had always been the survival of coral reefs in the area.
Nparks is both literally and operationally land-locked, concedes Dr Tan.
The board relies on marine biologists from the National University of Singapore to provide assessments and suggestions on how to salvage or portect the corals from the effects of reclamation work.
As in the case of the Green Plan, the question of boundaries and legal protection arises again.
Says Dr Tan: "In practical terms, designating boundaries in the seas is even more tenuous than on land, because unless you can control the tides and currents which carry the sediment, it is not going to have much effect.
"And you would need a fleet to patrol the area."
Both the Green Plan and Marine Nature Area concept appear to have promised more than they can deliver.
One thing everybody seems to be able to agree upon is that there is definitely nature here worth preserving.
According to the Nparks, the reserve's 2,800 ha is home to 2,277 plant species, 85 mammal species and 180 bird species.
New Zealand has a slightly lower native plant diversity than Singapore although it is 400 times larger.
Says Dr Tan: "How many cities in the world have their own nature reserve... A garden city with pristine nature."
The Garden City concept was built up over the last 30 years by Nparks and its predecessor, the Parks and Recreation Department, at a cost of about $1 billion, according to a Sunday Preview estimate of the greening agencies' cumulative expenditure over the years.
And the return on the investment?
In 1987, then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew says: "The trees and shrubs have given an air of grace and cultivation that cannot be measured in dollars."
There is also the promise of future grains.
Notes Nparks public affairs manager, Ms Karen Bartholomeusz: "Our forests are also a rich storehouse of potential pharmaceutical, medicinal and industrial products."
In a 1995 paper on Urbanisation and Nature Conservation co-authored by Dr Tan, he says: "Possibly of greatest social value, the forest reserves of Singapore are important sanctuaries from the stresses of urban living."
There can be no dispute that Singapore's natural heritage is both valuable and valued by many, seeing as how 140,000 people visited the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve alone last year.
The question remains, how can it be safeguarded for future generations?
Policies such as reclamation, co-locating community facilities under one roof and re-developing existing sites more intensively have nothing to do with nature conservation but are helping nonetheless to slow the demand for new land.
Although combining a community centre with a library in one multi-storey building seems like a logical thing to do to save a place, Mr Seow says: "It was a quantum leap to achieve this."
He explains that everyone wants a nice large sprawling site with its own building. Selling the idea has not been easy within the public sector, he admits.
Despite appearing to be on opposite sides, both URA and nature-lovers want the same thing fundamentally - to optimise use of developed land so as to delay having to dip into the dwindling land bank.
More work has to be done to devise and sell space-saving ideas if the Government is to deliver on the promise of the Green Plan and the Marine Nature Area.
How Hongkong optimises land use?
And for an idea of how to build in tight spots, look no further than Hongkong.
The Singapore International School in Hongkong is built on a steep slope and occupies only 0.4ha, about the size of a community club here and one-quarter the size of an average primary school, say Mr Tan.
By going up to 13 storeys, instead of four here in Singapore schools, the Hongkong institution still manages to accommodate about 900 students and provide a full range of facilities such as roof-top play areas, tennis court, gymnasium and a swimming pool.
There is even an assembly area on the eighth storey that fire engines can access by a ramp leading up to the level.
Innovation in land use is also evident in Hongkong's private sector, with the Coca Cola Swire bottling plant in Shatin, built to look more like an office complex than a factory.
The 19-storey building stands on a 0.7ha site and the production line, which is usually laid out horizontally, is now run top-down.
Says Mr Tan: "We have to overcome the psychological barriers and break out of the legacies of the past. Why do motor workshops, for example, have to be spread out? Can't they be stacked multi-storey?"
One other option which holds great promise here is to go underground. Two studies by researchers from the Nanyang Technological University into the geology of the island have found large parts of it highly suitable to build caverns for storage and other uses.
And by the middle of next year, the Public Works Department tells Sunday review that field work will be completed for what could be the first major civilian cavern project, the Underground Science city - a subterranean equivalent of Science Park - beneath the hills of Keng Ridge Park.
Convincing the public and private sector to co-locate facilities, build multi-storey or go underground seems very remote from the issue of saving a mangrove swamp.
But anything that slows down the demand for new land will go towards extending the existing lease held by nature areas.
Space-saving policies aside, there is also the question of policies.
In the 1995 paper, Dr Tan says: "The pressure to regard the nature reserves as a land bank to draw upon for development will intensify… The fate of nature conservation in Singapore will very much depend upon the political will, which is turn is shaped by the priorities of the people of Singapore.
Nature areas may never get to enjoy freehold status, but as priorities change, they may become long-term tenants with an option to renew. - additional reporting by Lea Wee.
Combine islands or build higher
Combining the three southern islands used for military live firing exercises into one, by reclaiming land, is an option to consider, says the Defence Ministry.
A ministry spokesman tells Sunday Review that there is potential in amalgamating Pulau Sudong, Pulau Pawai and Pulau Senang by reclamation as in the case of neighbouring Jurong Island.
Jurong Island is a $7-billion project to combine a group of seven southern islands through reclamation. When completed in 2003, it will become Singapore's largest offshore island, with almost 3 sq km of land.
Since the 60's, Singapore has grown by about 7,700 football fields through reclamation. By the time the population hits four million, the land area should have increased by another 15 per cent to 730 sq km.
Reclamation is among the strategies adopted to overcome Singapore's space constraints.
Other approaches include:
* Building higher: Although height restrictions apply in most parts of the island, in some areas, buildings have not gone up to the maximum.
* HDB has started to build flats up to 30 storeys or 100 m in the central area and the Jurong Town Corporation is taking factories high-rise in Woodlands.
Build on 16.8 ha, it will house 174 units, three times more than what could be built on ground level.
* Under one roof: Co-locating bus-interchanges and MRT stations with commercial centres was tried out in Woodlands station and is now being planned for Toa Payoh and Ang Mo Kio as well.
* The same concept is being extended to community centres, libraries, polyclinics and other civic institutions, says URA.
Even seemingly unrelated infrastructure projects have been married successfully to save space.
By the end of this year, work would have been completed on a new storm water pond sited beneath the junction of the Seletar and Bukit Timah expressway flyovers on what is usually left as a turfed open areas.
* Redevelop: In the earlier days, planners were slightly more generous with space. The old Woodbridge Hospital, for example, was sprawled over 146 ha.
The new hospital is in the much tighter 20-ha plot. Similarly, the re-built Tan Tock Seng hospital occupies 5 ha, compared 20 ha before.
Even the Defence Ministry expects to release 311 ha of prime land by 2010, by building high-rise military facilities and using land more efficiently.
The amount of land freed for commercial purposes may increase eventually to 407 ha, equivalent to the area of Clementi New Town.