NParks' Simon Longman leaves legacy of majestic trees
By Tan Hui Yee, The Straits Times, 9 Sep 2012
It was a Singapore rain tree destined for the chainsaw. After flourishing quietly near Cashew Road for 20 years, it found itself backed up against a new road carved out to build the new Circle Line. One of its thick, gnarled branches loomed over the road, too low for trucks to pass under safely, but too big to be removed without damage.
Enter a tall, bearded man with a booming voice and an audacious idea to match. Why don't we push up the branch, he asked Singapore's road and greening authorities.
And so they did. One morning two years ago, with the help of the Land Transport Authority, the National Parks Board (NParks) winched the branch up, inch by inch. It was raised by two metres and propped up against a support. The tree is thriving today.
The tree's saviour is Mr Simon Longman who, up till last week, headed the NParks division caring for Singapore's embattled roadside greenery. The Republic's lush, shady roads serve as powerful symbols of organisational efficiency, and few can claim to have shaped the greenery as much as him.
Dr Tan Wee Kiat, NParks adviser and chief executive officer of the Gardens by the Bay, calls Mr Longman "the most indefatigable champion" of Singapore's vision as a "City in a Garden".
Big man, small bike
Over the past three decades, the Briton has designed a tree-care system that has put Singapore at the forefront of urban tropical arboriculture. He has also saved countless other trees from needless felling, by thinking up ever-newer ways to let five million people, 3,400km of roads and thousands of buildings co-exist with over a million trees on this crowded island.
Last week though, the Manchester-born arborist called it a day, opting for early retirement at 55 to pursue a degree in theology.
Mr Longman is something of an anomaly in Singapore's civil service, as a long-staying Westerner who has steadily risen up the ranks. He speaks Malay and was always the first among his colleagues to tramp into thick undergrowth to examine a tree.
He rode a motorcycle to work. Not a head-turning Harley-Davidson or a speedy Ducati, but a China-made 150cc Honda.
"People always asked me, 'Why don't you get a car? You are a director, you have status,'" he recalls with amusement over coffee and quiche at the Botanic Gardens. "I get the thing which is most practical."
He is "not lawa", he adds, using the Malay term for showy.
Part of his job requires him to examine diseased trees in Singapore's various nooks and crannies and it was a hassle finding somewhere to park, he explains.
Along the way, he became known as "the big man on the small bike" who speaks up for roadside trees, yet artfully balances the wishes of different quarters to widen support for Singapore's Garden City vision.
Practical-minded Singaporeans at times demand perfectly healthy trees removed because they are untidy or inconvenient. "Managing Singapore's greenery is diplomatic work," notes private landscaper Veera Sekaran.
On some occasions, when residents have complained about healthy trees shedding too many leaves, Mr Longman suggested planting different species near the offending trees, then removing the original ones when the new trees were big enough to provide shade.
A hunger, and a passion
NParks assistant director Tee Swee Ping recalls: "He would look at it from a larger perspective and say that as long as the Garden City vision has not been adversely affected, we should accommodate some of the sentiments on the ground."
Perhaps more importantly, he has helped to change mindsets among civil servants who assume that trees have to give way whenever the country's green ambitions run up against key development projects.
He thinks the turning point came about 12 years ago, when the LTA widened a stretch of the East Coast Parkway. At his urging, the LTA narrowed the centre verge instead of simply lopping off the majestic trees at both sides of the highway. The specimens at the centre suffered from the smaller space, but survived. This proved that it was possible to widen roads without sacrificing trees, and sowed the seeds of collaboration between the two agencies.
He recounts: "Before, it was just, 'This road has got to be widened, so sorry Simon, all these trees have got to be cut down'. Now it is: 'Come Simon, let's have a coffee and talk.'"
Still, such negotiation can be very uncomfortable, he lets on, likening it to "a boxing ring".
In his eyes, trees are a cause worth fighting for.
Mr Longman credits his passion to his father, a forestry lecturer whose wanderlust meant the young Simon had lived in Britain, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and the former Czechoslovakia by the time he turned 11.
In 1978, after graduating from the University of East Anglia with a degree in environmental sciences, he escaped Britain's grim employment scene by signing up as a liaison and research officer at Sarawak's Bako National Park. The pay then - RM450 - wasn't much to shout about, but it let him pick up Malay from the indigenous people and learn about South-east Asian forests first-hand.
It was also where he met his wife, Joanna, a Sarawak native.
Two years later, he turned up at the office of Singapore's first Parks and Recreation commissioner Wong Yew Kwan, asking for a job. He was told to start the next day.
"I was hungry," he says. "I needed to get the first month's salary to support my wife. I had only 500 Malaysian dollars in my pocket."
Fast forward 32 years, and he has earned far more than his starting pay of $1,650 as a curator. He and his homemaker wife have also raised five children, who have given them four grandchildren.
Potential employers from Europe and the Middle East have come a-knocking, but he did not waver in his decision to stay in his post at NParks.
"I was fulfilled in what I was doing here," he says. Money was what drew him to Singapore, he says, but "I wanted to leave behind something that would endure, something that would be of great value to Singapore".
Last year though, the devout Catholic experienced what he describes as a call from God while on a pilgrimage in Italy. He decided to pursue a degree in theology to allow him to better teach others the religion.
Still, he remained steadfast in duty until his last day at NParks last week. Early this year, he personally inspected a listing mahogany tree near the East Coast Parkway.
Crossing a drain to get a closer look, he lost his footing and all 112kg of his 1.86-m frame came crashing down on his right hand, breaking it in two places.
Reeling from the pain, he fished out his mobile phone with his left hand.
And called his staff to cut the tree down.
Only then, did he call his wife for help.
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