Hi, I am Li Zhe and its great to have you visit this little part of the internet that’s mine. I am an undergraduate studying environmental studies at NUS. Join me on my quest to understand how we humans interact and respond to the threat of climate change. In the process I also hope to discover why people don’t live a more eco-friendly lifestyle and have greater environmental empathy.
Why you might ask? My love for the environment bloomed due to my frequent interactions with nature as a child. When I was much younger, my family stayed extremely close to Jurong Lake Gardens so close that the buzzing of cicadas were ever present.
It is now a new national garden after undergoing a 2-stage makeover. Stage 1 ended in April 2019 while Stage 2 ends in 2021. I was brought on frequent fishing trips with my father but could never bring myself to fish with him. Since the makeover, the area around Jurong Lake has certainly become better taken care of, yet for me the park has lost its kampung vibes.
Over the years, I realised among the fishes my father caught during his fishing trips to the lakes, many of the fish were non-native species such as the Jaguar Cichlid pictured below. This hints of people releasing these fishes into our waters. In Singapore, our natural forests have also been greatly impacted by urban development, less than 1 percent of Singapore is primary forest. It takes decades before forests can regain their primary status. I learnt over my youth that nature is something worth protecting. We must and should know the impact we have on our environment. Now the climate crisis is staring at us right in the face, we need all hands-on deck to face what I see as humanity’s greatest challenge.
This belief led me to select environmental empathy as my theme. With the threat of the climate crisis and a sixth extinction creeping up upon us. It is us, the people that are going to be the greatest hope of averting impending doom but at the same time we are also capable of dooming us all. Humanity is both panacea and scourge. We have to change environmental apathy to empathy. I think education and awareness will be vital in making lasting change. Thereby ensuring our children and those of the next generation can still enjoy the product of millions of years of evolution and creation.
Awareness about climate change is great, but are there changes in your lifestyle in response? Even by making a change, are we truly living an eco-friendly lifestyle? Is it even possible? Nonetheless I think that me and my BES friends agree that there should be effort on our part to live in a manner that lessens our impact on our ‘burning’ planet.
Join me in my next post, where I explore the views of climate change deniers.
See you soon!
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Hi Li Zhe ! I really enjoyed reading this post! And I can’t wait to see how you will delve deeper in the views of some climate change deniers (:
Also, I want to ask you about the stage makeover in the Jurong Lake Gardens. Do you think that even though the area has lost its “kampung vibes”, the authorities actually still have a sense of “environmental empathy” because they still retain most of the greeneries in the area?
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Hi Sherry! Honestly that “kampung vibes”, we speak of I won’t say it was necessarily good for the environment as well. There were many areas that were in varying states of disrepair and oil accumulation in certain areas where land met the water. Undoubtedly, I would say our authorities certainly have their heart in the right place. With their plan to have Jurong as a new tourism hub, they certainly can’t have the areas around Jurong in a state of neglect. I think governments have a tough job having to balance many factors, sometimes it is impossible to please everyone. Certainly not me with my sense of nostalgia. I think this fact is also very relevant for your blog topic with Jakarta. The process of landscaping the entire park would certainly have affected wildlife in the park, but Jurong Lake is also formed by the damming of SungeiJurong. So I’m also not sure how much was originally here.
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Hi Li Zhe, firstly I LOVE the blog title!
It is unfortunate how Singapore’s limited natural land is constantly being modified by our urbanisation. Have you heard about the plans to turn the Mandai area into a tourism hub? What do you make of that? Would you say Singaporeans are apathetic to the environment? Looking forward to see how you tackle this complicated topic!
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Hi Jia Wei, I actually didn’t hear of this plan till you mentioned it. From my short googling, I see they plan to have Mandai as an eco-tourism hub. Certainly, it calls to question whether ecotourism is any better than tourism? From what I read they mentioned the hub would be built on existing land that has been cleared (https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/mandai-eco-resort-to-offer-guests-behind-the-scenes-animal-experiences), yet of course surrounding forests can be affected by noise or dust. By the way, Jeng Wei from our class is doing a blog on zoos perhaps you can take a look at his blog as well. I will be collecting some data on your second question and I can’t wait to share it with you then. Great to see you here. 😊