Hi everyone!

I hope you have been doing well. Hang in there as we venture on our life with another quote.

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

As we close the topic on urban greenery, the last few posts of my blog will encompass on the psychology about conservation.

Back in Week 9, I was being shared with Dr Coleman’s interesting concept about ecosystem services. What are they? Based on the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, they are defined as products or services given to people by ecosystems (Maynard & Conner, 2020)^[1]. They are distinguished into 4 broad categories, which are mainly the cultural (or intangibles), provisioning, supporting and regulating services (National Wildlife Federation, 2020)^[2].

In week 10 (on 19th Oct 2020), I was given an opportunity to attend a talk given by three generous panellists who have given their time to share their experiences on the theme, Biodiversity: An Essential Service. One of them was Dr Daniel Friess (from the Department of Geography in NUS), and he mentioned the importance of ecosystem services. He shared that in Singapore, it has a natural capital which the natural environment can provide various services to the people. Take for instance the trees that are plotted along the streets of Singapore, they are considered under the regulating service since they help to reduce the hot air temperatures around the island, known as the urban heat island effect. You can read into this article where trees are found to be reducing warm temperatures around rural areas more than in urban areas such as the city in Singapore (Lin, 2016)^[3].

From the previous posts I have shared about parks, they are considered as ecosystem services too. Not only they help to build an ecosystem for biodiversity to flourish, but also they help to alleviate mental health issues, which I feel that we didn’t make full use of them.

My Thoughts

While we are occupied with our lives to facilitate our needs, we should never forget the benefits that these non-human beings provide. Even though plants may not be able to speak, I feel that they should deserve to live fundamentally with us since it cares for our well-being physically and psychologically. While they silently bring out the benefits that enable us to live peacefully in our everyday lives, we in turn should be giving back by giving them what they need.

In the next mind,

Wee Meng