Parks, nature reserves important: URA
LAND is a scarce resource in Singapore, and drafting the Master Plan for land use requires a balanced accommodation of the many competing needs that Singapore has, both as a country and as a city ("Nature Society slams land-use plan"; Wednesday). Above all, we need to ensure that the fundamental and basic needs of our citizens are met first.
Unlike countries with the luxury of land outside their cities for defence, utilities and nature areas, Singapore has to accommodate all these uses in our small island.
Our planning intention is to create a high-quality living environment for our people, and this includes housing, jobs, recreation, schools, hospitals and transport systems for both domestic and international connectivity.
Despite the land constraints, parks and nature reserves are and have always been accorded importance in our plans.
In the Draft Master Plan 2013, we allocated 9 per cent of land for parks and nature reserves. This compares very favourably to land allocated to other major uses, as shown in the table.
In addition, a large proportion of the land allocated for defence is forested and contributes to our biodiversity.
Given our land constraints, we have sought practical and innovative solutions to integrate greenery and biodiversity into our urban environment, through our parks, park connectors, streetside planting, water networks and sky-rise greenery. In this way, we also improve the quality of our living environment.
Likewise, while we are not able to regard and legislate every wooded area as a protected nature area, we have selectively conserved representative eco-systems in our gazetted nature reserves.
We have also designated 20 nature areas with significant biodiversity that will be retained for as long as development is not needed. Most of these areas are, in fact, part of our larger public parks, such as Bukit Batok Nature Park and Kent Ridge Park.
When Dr Ahmed Djoghlaf, the former executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, visited Singapore in 2008, he endorsed our approach and even thought Singapore could serve as a model of how cities can overcome their land constraints to conserve biodiversity in an urban setting.
At his invitation, Singapore subsequently partnered the Convention on Biological Diversity to set up the Singapore Index on Cities' Biodiversity, as a tool for cities to benchmark and guide their conservation efforts. This is an achievement Singapore can be proud of, and which we hope to advance through our Master Plan.
We are currently assessing the suggestions from the drafters of the Nature Society's submission. We hope to find opportunities to respond and engage constructively, so as to explore useful suggestions in due course.
Hwang Yu Ning (Ms)
Group Director (Physical Planning)
Nature Society slams land-use plan
URA's commitment to conservation negligible, it says
By Feng Zengkun, The Straits Times, 8 Jan 2014
THE Nature Society (NSS) has taken issue with the Government's latest land-use draft masterplan, calling it "embarrassingly negligible" in its commitment to conserving biodiversity.
In a strongly worded document posted on its website last Friday, the society said that only 4.4 per cent of Singapore's projected 76,600ha land area in 2030 was seriously committed to preserving the country's wealth of plants and animals.
This falls well short of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which Singapore ratified in 1995. The UN recommended that by 2020, at least 17 per cent of terrestrial and inland water areas should be conserved.
A draft of the Urban Redevelopment Authority's masterplan, which guides land use over the next 10 to 15 years and is revised every five years, was unveiled last November. It will be finalised by June after taking in the public's feedback.
It included a pledge to expand green spaces, introduce more than 60km of "nature ways" by next year to link green spaces for birds, butterflies and small animals, and build a new eco-corridor through the future Tengah town to connect the Western Water Catchment and the Bukit Timah and Central Catchment Nature Reserves.
While plans to create more public parks are laudable, they cannot count towards serious efforts to preserve flora and fauna, as parks are created mainly for people, said NSS.
"With the exclusion of the public parks and the so-called nature areas... we have only 4.4 per cent of Singapore's total land area (in 2030) committed seriously to biodiversity conservation."
The NSS's 4.4 per cent figure includes nature reserves, which are protected from development by law, but excludes reservoirs as well as previously announced "nature areas", such as a 20ha natural greenery patch in Admiralty Park, which are left alone only if there is no need for development.
Although ratification of the UN convention does not mean "total adherence" to it, Singapore's 4.4 per cent is a "shocking, niggardly contribution" to the benchmark, NSS said.
Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development and Environment chairman Lee Bee Wah said Singapore is a country and city with competing land uses. "We should not harp on the percentages. It is more important to strike a balance," she said, adding the 17 per cent target may be more achievable in other places with more land.
The URA said it has received NSS' feedback and is assessing the suggestions.
Needs of man outweigh need for biodiversity
THE Nature Society (Singapore) has criticised the Urban Redevelopment Authority's (URA) land-use draft masterplan, because only 4.4 per cent of our land area was "committed seriously to biodiversity conservation", instead of the 17 per cent recommended by the United Nations ("Nature Society slams land-use plan;" yesterday).
As Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development and Environment chairman Lee Bee Wah has pointed out, "we should not harp on the percentages".
Singapore, with a land area of only 716 sq km, cannot afford to set aside 17 per cent of it for biodiversity.
Our golf clubs alone take up 2 per cent of land area, and there is competing demand for public housing, roads, schools and other amenities.
About 3,318ha of Singapore's land space is already devoted to parks, park connectors and open spaces.
The URA should limit the number of condominiums along Hindhede Drive as these homes, being so near the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, have led to a rise in human-animal conflicts.
We should also keep Pulau Ubin in its pristine state, to ensure the survival of wildlife there.
Let us not wax sentimental over how much land should be devoted to nature. Our land planners have already taken biodiversity concerns into consideration.
Given our limited size, the needs of man should outweigh the needs of plants and animals.
Heng Cho Choon
ST Forum, 9 Jan 2014
ST Forum, 9 Jan 2014
URA defends biodiversity commitment
By Feng Zengkun, The Straits Times, 11 Jan 2014
By Feng Zengkun, The Straits Times, 11 Jan 2014
THE Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) yesterday defended its land-use draft masterplan's commitment to conserving Singapore's plants and animals.
Answering a charge by the Nature Society (NSS) that the plan's commitment to biodiversity was "embarrassingly negligible", the URA said: "Despite land constraints, parks and nature reserves are and have always been accorded importance..."
The draft of the masterplan, which guides land use over the next 10 to 15 years, was unveiled last November. It will be finalised by June after taking in the public's feedback.
The URA said that "unlike countries with the luxury of land outside their cities for defence, utilities, and nature areas, Singapore has to accommodate all these uses in our small island".
Despite this, 9 per cent of the planned 76,600ha land area in 2030 has been set aside for parks and nature reserves. "This compares very favourably to land allocated to other major uses", such as 17 per cent each for housing as well as industry and commerce.
NSS noted in its 24-page document on the masterplan that parks should not be included as serious conservation efforts as they were mainly meant for people. It said only 4.4 per cent of land in 2030 was seriously committed to preserving flora and fauna.
This proportion includes nature reserves, but excludes reservoirs and previously announced "nature areas", such as a 20ha greenery patch in Admiralty Park, which are only left alone if there is no need for development.
"Singapore has perhaps the most difficult land use balancing act of all countries, and we have done remarkably well," NSS president Shawn Lum said yesterday. "But I think we have the expertise, ideas and ingenuity to make the country greener and richer in nature areas. They are not mutually exclusive with a robust economy and desirable quality of life."
Being practical about land-use balance
Editorial, The Straits Times, 22 Jan 2014
Editorial, The Straits Times, 22 Jan 2014
THE Nature Society is to be commended for its passionate advocacy of biodiversity, in pressing for more of Singapore's land mass to be protected as nature reserves.
That human habitats should allow space for animal and plant life is not any longer a fad promoted by tree-huggers, but is the essence of controlled, liveable environments. It makes for the subtle difference between quality of life and a high standard of living based on measurable indicators.
Singaporeans could envy the Nordic nations, Canada and New Zealand for managing so well the coexistence between man and nature but these countries have what Singapore does not - sizeable territory and low population density.
Yet quality of life need not suffer because living space is constricted. Singapore has been sensitive in its treatment of land and liveability, and one would be hard put to fault many outcomes.
The society's quarrel with the Urban Redevelopment Authority's land-use projections for the next decade is that more of what are now forested areas lying outside military zones will eventually be given over to development. The green cover that provides sanctuary for animals, birds and a great variety of flora will be diminished as a result, the society laments.
The URA's counter-argument is that trade-offs between what is attainable and what is desirable are a fact of life. Nature lovers need to weigh this point too, however desirable their biodiversity goals. The Nature Society is literal in wanting most of the "natural" greenery that exists (mainly forests) to be preserved, almost for posterity. But most Singaporeans would view "biodiversity" from the broad standpoint of the island's greening, which incidentally pre-dates green campaigns.
In their book, "greening" is not only about protected nature reserves but also covers parks, park connectors, street-side trees, the environs of water catchments and even golf courses. In this context, some would say Singapore is a world champion.
If the issue was put to neutral observers, there is little doubt they would declare they live in a pleasantly green environment where the air is fresh and ambient temperatures are held down by the copious tree cover. And there is room for flora and fauna.
With forests, coastal reserves and parkland taking up one-third of the territory, Singapore cannot by any yardstick be regarded as under-provided in green cover relative to population.
But future population growth and associated demands for housing, utilities, factories and social infrastructure will exert pressures on available land. Ratios achieved thus far have been manageable but these will get tighter over time. Campaigners need to acknowledge these realities, even as they push for a continual reappraising of the right balance.
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