Local eco-groups now draw sponsors

Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 11 Jun 08
also carried on Channel NewsAsia 11 Jun 08

THE coffee-shop setting was typically Singaporean, but the idea hatched there by a group of Singaporeans was not. Deciding to come together to lead nature walks for the public, the 15 called themselves the Naked Hermit Crabs — after the fragile crustacean found on our shores at low tide.

“We were sitting at Seah Im food centre, when someone brought up the idea of forming a group. At the time, we were scattered all over: Some volunteering with universities, others with the National Parks Board (:NParks),” said one of the Crabs, trainee teacher Ivan Kwan, 26.

The Crabs turned one last week and celebrated by holding a Sentosa nature walk and a photo exhibition at the National Library.

Other eco-volunteer groups have surfaced in recent years, with interests as diverse as the environment they try to protect, from educating the apathetic to monitoring Singapore’s shorelife.

More significantly, they have moved further mainstream — even attracting corporate sponsors — and “the climate has now changed for eco-groups to be more constructive and productive”, said an eco-volunteer who declined to be named due to job sensitivities.

TeamSeagrass, for example, was formed in 2006 and monitors our sea grasses and other intertidal life. It is part of the international Seagrass-Watch initiative, and works with NParks.

The Environmental Challenge Organisation, or ECO Singapore, became active in 2005 and promotes an environmentally-sustainable lifestyle among youth.

As for the Crabs, its volunteers were paying for publicity material and transport fees out of their own pockets until eyewear manufacturer Transitions Optical stepped in last week — with a “five-figure sum” sponsorship.

This was even as Singapore celebrated World Environment Day last week with many instances of private-public-people sector collaborations. The ongoing RE-Live! carnival at Dhoby Ghaut, for example, is organised by ECO Singapore in partnership with groups like Nature Trekker and the Singapore Environment Council. It also has companies such as paper manufacturer Double A and gym equipment brand Aibi as sponsors.

In recent years, the Government has taken more to soliciting feedback from nature groups in making decisions. For example, before it opened landfill island Pulau Semakau for guided intertidal walks and nature-related activities in 2005, it invited nature groupsto do surveys and studies to help with the planning. Now home to a coral nursery, Pulau Semakau’s marine ecological system was cited by the Minister for National Development in his speech last month at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn, Germany.

Eco groups are also drawing more volunteers — ECO Singapore’s numbers have grown from 13stake in 2005 to 112 now – and increasing awareness of little-known bio-diverse pockets that risk being destroyed through land reclamation or construction activities.

“A lot of the time, we don’t know what we have and that’s why we don’t get upset (when it’s lost),” said the eco volunteer.

The Crabs now have 20 active volunteers and organise monthly Chek Jawa tours as well as Sentosa walks eight times a year. “We’re not marine biologists or anything, we just want to share what’s available on our shores with others,” said Mr Kwan.

He recounted how an avid diver was amazed that a shrimp he had gone to Manado in Indonesia to photograph could be found in Changi’s shores.

The Crabs also hope to organise trips to the Cyrene Reef, home to vast seagrass meadows and coral reefs and only exposed during low tide. Lying between the petrochemical plants of Jurong Island and Pulau Bukom, it was there that the nature lovers discovered a sea star species new to Singapore — the Pentaceraster mammillatus.

Said Ms Wong Ley Kun, 46, a member of the Crabs who also volunteers with Team Seagrass: “The Government is aware that there can be a balance between conservation and development. I once took an architect to Chek Jawa, and he was amazed to see both wildlife at his feet and a plane taking off at a distance.”

Related articles

Sharing secrets of shore life: the Naked Hermit Crabs
Tiffany Fumiko Tay, Straits Times 7 Jun 08;

Links to more information

• Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs blog
• TeamSeagrass blog
• ECO-Singapore
• About Cyrene Reef
• More about our shores and how to visit them
• More about volunteering for our wild places
• Transitions Optical