On the 11th of May, 1967, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew introduced the ‘Garden City’ vision for Singapore. This vision aimed to transform Singapore into a clean city with an abundance of greenery to help improve the livelihood of its people.
What started off as a simple tree planting programme, paved the way for a plethora of new green initiatives over the years. In 1988, the next phase of Singapore’s greening journey was unveiled to be the ‘City in a Garden’ vision, and since 2020, we have started moving towards the vision of Singapore as a ‘City in Nature’.
But what does a ‘City in Nature’ entail? And are we ready for this transition?
While a ‘garden’ refers to a planned space for greenery to grow, ‘nature’ on the other hand has an ability to integrate itself with the environment around it. However, over the years nature’s lack of boundaries has proven to be a pressing problem in Singapore especially in the case of human-wildlife interactions. Due to the lack of adequate awareness of native wildlife encounters, most Singaporeans unknowingly behaving in inappropriate ways around wildlife such as getting close to them to either pet, feed or take pictures.
Figure 2: human-wildlife interaction with fascinated passersby taking pictures
Smooth-Coated Otter (Lutrogale perspicillata)
IUCN Status: Vulnerable
Source: IFLA Asia-Pacific
This type of behaviour often stems from feelings of fear and fascination and while majority of people leave the scene unscathed, some aren’t as lucky. A recent instance of a man fearing for his life as he was attacked by a family of otters is a prime example of what could happen during a human-wildlife interaction if one is not careful.
Figure 3: Singapore Botanic Gardens Secondary Rainforest
Photographer: Kelsie Muir
During my field trip to the Singapore Botanical Gardens Learning Forest with my NUS Applied Biogeography class, I witnessed just how naive Singaporeans are regarding their wildlife interactions. This Learning Forest is a secondary tropical lowland rainforest, home to a diverse range of flora and fauna. As a result of urbanization, an area with such vast biodiversity is not often seen in Singapore and therefore, it has become a sanctuary for various wildlife to thrive.
Figure 4: Juvenile Macaque (top) and its father (bottom) at the Singapore Botanic Gardens
Long-Tailed Macaque (Macaca fascicularis)
IUCN Status: Vulnerable
Photographer: Kelsie Muir
One species in particular, the macaque, has a reputation of being very mischievous and visitors have therefore been advised to maintain their distance so as not to provoke them.
However, during our time there, we came across a family of 3 who disregarded all warnings given to them by not only the NPark signages but Professor Gretchen as well. Despite being advised to stay away from the juvenile macaque that we encountered, this family continued to walk right next to the monkey and even spewed unpleasant remarks at Professor Gretchen telling her that she needs to “chill” and that its okay to “pet and be nice to the monkey”.
Figure 4: NParks staff using a bamboo stick to keep the monkeys away from the visitors
Photographer: Kelsie Muir
This is a prime example of the typical naivety displayed by Singaporeans in their interactions with wildlife. As such, more needs to be done to educate Singaporeans on the proper ways of interacting with these animals so that we can learn to coexist and live peacefully with them in our journey to becoming a City in Nature.
Written by: Kelsie Yasmin Muir
NUS GE4224 Applied Biogeography
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