It’s been a while since my last post - the result of a rather hectic few weeks involving space rockets, red-light districts and wildlife rescues - but finally I’ve found a spare minute to bring you the latest environmental-tinged update.
A Million Trees
From the minute you leave Changi Airport you can’t help but notice one of Singapore’s most enduring attributes and one of the things I love about the place – the sheer abundance of trees in the city state. Whether it’s the beautiful sprawling rain trees or the yellow-flowered Angsanas to the towering Chengal Pasir with its beautiful seed showers, they are as much part of Singapore’s identity for me as Marina Bay Sands, chilli crab, its luxury malls and ornate shophouses.
One of the 250+ Heritage Trees in Singapore
Such is my interest, I’ve even started trying to visit as many of the trees tagged in their Heritage Trees scheme, which started back in 2001 to conserve mature trees of environmental and historical importance.
The good news (for a tree-hugger like me) is that a new government scheme is looking to add another million trees to this already leafy landscape by the year 2030, taking the grand total to around 8 million in total on the island. Launched in April this year, the nationwide : One Million trees Movement Singapore, is the reason I found myself standing on the Green Corridor with a mattock in hand one morning a couple of weeks ago along with four other volunteers. We were there to attend one of the tree planting sessions set up by Singapore’s National Parks as a way of getting the public involved in the project.
The session was led by Amanda Ng, part of the National Parks team managing the Green Corridor (a nature way on the site of an old railway line). She took time to explain how the project ties into the Government’s ‘City in Nature’ plans, which aims to extend Singapore’s green spaces and ensure that these are more rustic and natural going forward. Aside from improving biodiversity (by offering sanctuary and food for native bird and animal species) and enhancing the environment, the idea behind it all is to benefit from the important role that trees can play in the ongoing battle against climate charge (see the story below for more on that).
What this means in practical terms, is that the National Parks department are looking to implement a lot more mixed-planting of native species going forward, including doubling the number of trees they plant annually over the next ten years - ironically, the trees we planted were all grown in Malaysia.
Armed with a mattock and watering can, we were each charged with planting three trees along that specific stretch of the Green Corridor. In my case, those trees were a White Yellow Kandis (garcinia parvifolia) known for its white-yellow flowers, a Terap (artocarpus elasticus), which produces a sticky gum-like white sap that can be used to make chewing gum and last, but definitely not least, a beautiful Jelatong (dyera costulata) which can grow up to 80m tall.
Just me and my tree
Without knocking the session, the main aim was clearly to raise awareness for the scheme and to get more individuals interested in the project. I say that because the actual planting was very easy, thanks to the soil being pre-dug for us by a couple of National Park’s workers. Still that didn’t stop me getting very sweaty and muddy in the process and I’ve got to admit to feeling pretty smug and content for the rest of the day. I am also very much looking forward to boring people by pointing out ‘my’ trees every time I walk passed them.
Their sessions for November are already filling up fast, but some are still available and there are more in December. You can also sign up to the mailing list to get information on more upcoming tree-planting events in the future as they aim to hit 100,000 trees planted this year – they are currently at around 60,000.
I’ll definitely be signing up again and my family (well most of them) are keen to come along. Even if you can’t make the official sessions they do also invite people to set up their own tree planting events, which National Parks can support in terms of logistics and advice on selecting the right trees for that location. Just go to the website for more details.
Rewilding for the win
A creek in Litchfield National Park, Northern Territory
The importance of tree planting, and in fact the concept of rewilding our global environment in a bid to slow climate change simply can’t be overstated, as evidenced by a new report that came out recently in the scientific journal Nature.
Wetlands, savannahs and mangroves are all essential to helping retain biodiversity
The research by a team of scientists from Australia, Brazil and various European countries discovered that rewilding 30% of the land previously converted for other uses by humans would actually sequester a whopping 465 billion tons of carbon dioxide. In layman’s terms that means removing 49% of the total rise in CO2 in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. As if that wasn’t impressive enough they also estimated that a by-product of restoring this land would be the potential to avoid up to 70% of predicted species extinctions.
“We were surprised by the magnitude of what we found – the huge difference that restoration can make,” Bernardo Strassburg, the report’s lead author, told the Guardian.
While restoring forests and woodlands is obviously part of this process the report also noted that planting trees is definitely not the only solution and that there should be a focus on restoring other ecosystems like coastal wetlands and savannahs as well. Strassburg, was quoted in the Independent as saying “Our research shows that while reviving forests is critical for mitigating global warming and protecting biodiversity, other ecosystems also have a massive role to play.”
One finding was that rewilding farmland doesn’t have to impact food production
One aspect of the findings that I found particularly positive was the fact that such rewilding could be possible while still leaving enough farmland to cultivate the food needed to feed us all. In fact, they found that 55% of the 2,870 million hectares already converted into farmland could be restored to its original ecosystems without impacting food production.
The final positive to take away from this is that it wouldn’t need to be particularly expensive and targeted cross-border restoration plans, especially in developing countries, could lead to significant savings.
According to the Guardian story, only around 1% of the money being spent to combat climate change is currently going towards these more affordable ‘nature-based’ solutions. Clearly this report shows that this needs to change and that countries need to work together to explore this powerful solution to a global problem.
Friendly flyers
A mouse eared bat Photo by Adam Brokes from FreeImages
Finally, a quick heads up that we are coming to the end of Bat Week - fitting as people celebrate Halloween this weekend. I absolutely love bats but I am also aware that a lot of people don’t, hence the link with All Saints Eve and general ghostly goings on.
They certainly get a pretty bad press - one that’s got even worse since they got blamed for Covid. The reality is that they pose absolutely no threat to us humans and play a vital role in nature eating insects, spreading seeds and pollinating flowers.
We have both insect-eating and fruit bats in Singapore and they are pretty common place across the island. In fact, I often spot the former, swooping about in our street as they hunt for mosquitoes. Check out this National Geographic factfile for a bit more about these incredible creatures.
And I am afraid that is it for this week, not that there’s not lots to write about - just no time to do it. Fingers crossed normal service will resume next week and I hope to bring you news of an endangered species of monkey living in Singapore – if I can actually find them...