Have a say in shaping our home

I always lament to my parents that when I was young I was never given an opportunity to have a say in shaping my home. As I got older, I fought for every chance to have a say in what goes in (and out) my living environment. If that sounds familiar to you, you'll probably be happy to hear that we now get a chance to have a say in shaping our island home!

The Urban Redevelopment Authority, the national planning agency in Singapore, is seeking feedback for its next Concept Plan 2011 which determines Singapore's development plans for the next 30-50 years.

URA wants to know what you, fellow Singaporeans, want for our island city state. Here is your chance to speak up for our sea shores and other nature areas! And our heritage areas too!

Do the URA survey for its Concept Plan 2011.
http://spring.ura.gov.sg/conceptplan2011/

To quote Ria Tan of WildSingapore, "the survey is simple to do, with lots of free-text options for you to leave comments about your favourite places in Singapore. Speak up for our shores (and other nature areas)! Every voice counts! You can be sure lots of people will speak up for shopping centres so please speak up for our wild places! Get your like-minded friends to also speak up for our wild places and shores. "

For more on about the survey, see:
Wild shores of singapore blog
Habitatnews

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Nature in the Heartlands: Toa Payoh Town Park

Located beside the Pan Island Expressway and the Toa Payoh Swimming Pool, the Toa Payoh Town Park is one of the oldest neighborhood parks in Singapore developed in the 70s with Singapore's first satellite town. Despite being located beside the highway, the green belt acts as a buffer to the noise. It offers a relaxing sanctuary from the bustle of the mall that is just across the road. New plantings could be sighted amongst the old angsana trees heavy with staghorn ferns. These grand dames have probably seen the park change over the last 40 years.

Neighborhood parks like Toa Payoh Park are like a green oasis in the concrete landscapes that we are familiar with in our housing estates these days. One minute I could be walking past crowds at the HDB Hub and the next minute I feel like I have entered a secret garden, lined with trees that form a wall separating the garden and the madding crowd. It almost feels like they don't design parks the way they used to. New generation parks designed today seems to adopt an open concept which I suppose is inclusive but the concept of an enclosed lush green hideaway in the middle of the madding crowd appeals to me. Another of such a green oasis is the Istana Park located in the middle of orchard road.


View Toa Payoh Town Garden in a larger map

What more, wildlife appears to be teeming at the park as well! In fact, we were pleasantly greeted by these information boards about the dragonfly species which you can find at the park. And just as we were reading the signboard, a damselfly flew and settled on the blade of grass right in front of us. An excited monkey exclaimed immediately, "quick! quick! see which dragonfly is it!" but confronted with a choice of 6 different species on the board, we concluded that it must be "the red one", for obvious reasons.

For those who are unsure about the difference between dragonflies and damselflies, the next informative signboard down the path answered just that question! The table below from the about.com insect page gives you some clue.

Characteristic	Dragonfly	Damselfly
Eyes	most have eyes that touch, or nearly touch, at the top of the head	eyes are clearly separated, usually appearing to each side of the head
Body	usually stocky	usually long and slender
Wing Shape	dissimilar wing pairs, with hind wings broader at the base	all wings similar in shape
Position at Rest	wings held open, horizontally or downwards	wings held closed, usually over abdomen
Discal Cell	divided into triangles	undivided, quadrilateral
Male Appendages	pair of superior anal appendages, single inferior appendage	two pairs of anal appendages
Female Appendages	most have vestigial ovipositors	functional ovipositors
Larvae	breathe through rectal tracheal gills; stocky bodies	breathe through caudal gills; slender bodies

If you noticed the google map satellite image of the park, a series of freshwater habitats make up part of the park. The information board also pointed out how damselflies and dragonflies are important keystone species as they prefer clean clear unpolluted waters. In fact, in environmental assessment studies, the presence of eggs laid by mayflies, a relative of dragonflies and damselflies, are used as indicators of lake ecosystem health in the US. Perhaps likewise, dragonflies and damselflies play similar roles in our freshwater habitats. In Singapore, there are now about 117 species of dragonflies and damselflies, including some new records from last year. According to the signboard, a few species have gone extinct due to habitat loss.

If you're an enthusiast of our fragile winged friends, here's a guide from the Butterfly Circle blog which tells you more about butterfly photography at the Toa Payoh Town Park. It even includes a map of the place. In 2009, NParks held a workshop on creating dragonfly friendly habitats at the Toa Payoh Town Park! Personally I only happen to go there because dinner is in the middle of the park!

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EIA of Sentosa Integrated Resort

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Last year, as part of an assignment for an Environmental Management and Assessment class I was taking, my group and I did an environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the integrated resort at Sentosa.


The future Integrated Resort at Sentosa

It is important to note that this is in many ways a hypothetical EIA. There were assumptions made and we did NOT do any baseline surveys or studies. Information were all taken from other sources and projected for this site.


Reclamation of Sentosa to expand the land area for the Integrated Resort

As our environmental impact assessment was done after development has already started, we had to work on several imaginary assumption as to the conditions to which we were given the "project". While we were not able to provide data as to the amount of rare or endangered species lost, do realize that the emphasis in an EIA is on analyzing the impacts and coming up with mitigations.


"Scorched earth" styled approach to development

Having done a rather detailed background understanding of the area which is detailed in the presentation slides, we realized that essentially natural coral reefs were being buried just to create marine park, aquarium and artificial coral reef! The marine areas were being filled in with sand and then dug up again to have a venice-like setting with waterways and promenades.


Reclaiming the coastline of northern Sentosa only to turn it later into a water-themed resort

On top of that, the areas that are nearest to the encroached forest inland is going to become a spa area. As such we propose a building design that minimizes the cutting of the trees. The scorched earth, raze to the ground then build up again type of developmental approach is definitely more destructive than necessary. Architectural and building sensitivity to the existing landscape can mitigate the impact of the development greatly. On top of that it would also increase the value and reputation of the property and business.


You can see the existing sediment screens (marked by the orange line bouy) used as a form of mitigation to the impact of the reclamation but how effective is it compared to not reclaiming at all?

Additionally, EIA are supposed to have a very comprehensive public participation component as well. The actual EIA done of the development both had a very skewered term of reference (the question or issue of concerned that is examined by the EIA) as well as a poor excuse of public engagement. In fact, we had to lock away our phones, cameras and computers when we went to view it. Pen and paper only!

Either way, we can only hope that as the development is still in varying stages of construction, there is still opportunity for changes to be made to the design, such as incorporating more ecologically friendly features.

More photos of the reclamation and development works can be seen here.

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The Monkey's Land Dilemma

View of Los Angeles from the plane landing at LAX

It's been 26 days since the monkey checked in with her daily green action. Despite having been back in Singapore since Sunday, almost a week ago, I've been struggling to keep up with school, work and friends. Blame it on jet lag or just culture-lag but I'm trying to adjust back to regular programming again.

Can't say I have been particularly green while in Suburbia San Diego. It was particularly difficult and frustrating. Just about the only positive thing I noticed is that the toilet paper used is particularly environmental while back home, thick luscious toilet paper makes me cringe at the thought of virgin pulp. And honestly if I have to resort to comparing toilet paper, you know there hasn't been much else to focus on. Environmentally, of course.

While I haven't been exactly shopping my days away, drowning myself in materialist consumerism, it was particularly frustrating to drive from strip mall to box mall. Living in a suburban sprawl, visiting the sites where the San Diego fire has taken its toll, looking at burnt slopes made it very difficult for my sense and sensibilities.

Suddenly, visiting downtown Los Angeles felt like a reprieve and haven despite the fact that I've always hated it. I realize it's not the city itself that was unsustainable but the urban sprawl in the greater LA county and its commuting culture in said suburban sprawl that was critiqued.


The Lost Angels and its sprawl can be seen very clearly in this photo taken from Griffith Observatory near the Hollywood sign. Photo taken on the 2007 Winter Solstice.

Within the city itself, it was really much better in terms of walking, public transport and even mixed use housing! Unfortunately, my friend who is a LA county planner informed me that it's very much gentrified within the downtown area now. Read: expensive housing for rich executives. Pretty much the same as Singapore's downtown area I suppose.

Perhaps it is due to Singapore's space constraint that we have planned our land much better. However, this nagging thought will always lingers at the back of mind if Singapore had the land, would we also be crying out for single-family residence with a backyard for the kids and dog? In Singapore, owning a landed property is very much a status symbol. If more houses and land were available, surely we will all be scrambling for one. Sadly, who would want to live in high rise buildings then?

Perhaps after 2 generations of living in highrise apartment buildings, we have lost the call of the land. While it has disconnected us from nature, at the same time I doubt the suburban dwellers in san diego are very much more connected to nature. It's all a dilemma for me.

I tried to argue that nature should be kept apart from cities. Despite my love for nature, I rather live in the city. Not because I love living in cities. In fact, I abhor cities. However, if it means keeping myself from encroaching on wilderness, nature reserves and other rural or "wild" spaces, I would gladly suffer it.

How many people would be willing to do that? Not many I would think. If given the choice we all want the peaceful, tranquil, close to wild open spaces for our kids to run freely. I wouldn't want to raise a kid in New York City for example. It's really a headache thinking about these questions.

Yet watching the news in San Diego about cougars (mountain lions) running into the suburban towns in California made me toughen my resolve. There is a difference between living in the suburban area and living in a suburban SPRAWL. I think the motivations of planners and developers, population wanting to serve their own desires and crazy monkeys like me who cares more about the environment than my own desires are wildly different.

In Singapore, we don't have much say about suburban sprawl. In fact, we have sprawled beyond control. Jurong West extension, Punggol 21, were they not all "wilderness" before? The government says we need land for housing and goodbye mangroves and forests. Private developers (and the government that allocates land to them) continue to encroach on the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve with condominiums at the edge of the forest. Likewise, the selling point of these developments is to be "close to nature". Yet how many of these Bukit Timah residents complain about snakes coming into their homes? I know a few. Another case in point of the cougars.

So are we much different from the sprawl in US or any other countries? My only consolation perhaps is that our planning applied the key features of the new urbanism concept which is to have things within walking distance and to reduce car use and building a sense of community. Well, it's debatable. Besides there have been critiques who thought that Singapore may do a better job at conservation if we never build satellite towns scattered around the island but focused on growing the city in one concentrated space.

Do we ever think about what we are doing to satisfy our selfish desire to be "close to nature"? While we love nature, do we want to destroy nature just for us to have a piece of it? Or should we "sacrifice" our selfish desire and suffer the urban populace so that we can still have a piece of nature to go enjoy on the weekends?

And that is my monkey land dilemma and honestly I still do not know what the "right answer" is. Nor so I have an answer for myself. What do you think?

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