Greening of Singapore still going strong

'Majulah! The Singapore Spirit' is the theme of this year's National Day Parade. In the third of a four-part series, The Straits Times is featuring one of four Singapore icons which embody this onward, progressive spirit
Feng Zengkun Straits Times 25 Jul 11;

HIGH on the summit of Mount Faber is a tree that turns 40 this year.

It is a rain tree, thick with a massive crown, indistinguishable from thousands that dot every part of Singapore.

It is the tree that helped give birth to a movement. It was Nov 7, 1971. The late Dr Goh Keng Swee, who was acting prime minister then, took up a spade, put the sapling into the ground and declared the first-ever Tree Planting Day under way.

What followed was a 'mass production of trees', said National Parks Board (NParks) chief executive Poon Hong Yuen, 41.

More than a million trees took root here, not just rain trees but also sea apple trees, acacias and pong pongs. There were also fruit trees - coconuts, pomelos, rambutans and mangosteens, each tempting the light-fingered and hungry.

They found their place in housing estates and along expressways, in Orchard Road and even Changi Airport.

It was a plan coming to fruition.

'After independence, I searched for some dramatic way to distinguish ourselves from other Third World countries,' former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew wrote in his 2000 memoir, From Third World To First. 'I settled for a clean and green Singapore.'

The trees not only provided food but also offered shade, lowered the temperature of the country in the tropics and boosted the morale of Singaporeans who took pride in the verdant city.

Some even fell in love.

Mr Abdul Harim, 51, has worked for NParks for more than 25 years. He leads a group of specialists who inspect damaged trees in Singapore.

'I grew up in a kampung surrounded by trees,' he said. 'You learn that trees are like humans, each one is unique.'

Following his calling, he went to the National University of Singapore (NUS), graduated with a degree in science with honours in botany and joined NParks.

Tree Planting Day lasted 20 years, replaced in 1990 by Good Environment Week. The new name reflected an expansion to include waste, noise and ozone pollution control, but trees remained at the heart of it.

'Nature reserves are a natural heritage of Singapore that have not been cared for in a manner that they should have been,' said then NParks chief Tan Wee Kiat a year into the new programme.

Seeds from Bukit Timah Nature Reserve were planted in Upper Peirce to reforest it. The Ministry of National Development launched a census to keep track of plant biodiversity here.

The repair work continues today.

Next Sunday, work will start on a green bridge to connect two parts of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, which was bisected in 1987 by an expressway. Under a plan to link green spaces, there will be 300km of park connectors built by 2015.

'We did a lot of damage in the name of progress,' said Professor Leo Tan, director of special projects at the NUS science faculty. He co-edited the first encyclo-paedia on Singapore's biodiversity which was launched last week.

A joint study by NUS and the University of Adelaide last year found that Singapore had destroyed 90 per cent of its forests in the past three decades. It named the Republic the worst environmental offender out of 179 countries surveyed.

There have been other naysayers. Earlier this year, Dr Geh Min, the former president of the Nature Society (Singapore) and a former Nominated MP, told The Straits Times that the Government's 'top-down' approach to greenery does not convey respect for nature.

'Instead, it's the feeling that you can create anything if you have the money,' she said.

Mr Poon disagreed then. 'Almost half of our country is green. We increased the number of trees and shrubs at a time when the population exploded by 60 per cent. Rather than 'artificial', I would say it's 'extraordinary', the product of sheer will and hard work.'

And it continues. About 10,000 saplings are planted each year by NParks alone. Last year, Sembcorp Industries sponsored the Sembcorp Forest of Giants at Telok Blangah Hill Park. Families adopt trees for their children as gifts or wedding presents. Gardens by the Bay, Singapore's billion-dollar ode to greenery, will open its doors next year.

In 2009, the United Nations praised Singapore's efforts over the years: 'Greenery can be found here in every nook and cranny.'

For Mr Harim, the love endures.

He said he will check on the trees here as long as he can, with his plain screw-driver and more advanced tools.

He said: 'You love it, you put your heart into it. That's all there is to it.'