Best of our wild blogs: 21- 22 Oct 18

Our Crazy Rich Shores: Pulau Satumu and Pulau Biola
Celebrating Singapore Shores!

Wild Berembang overload!
wild shores of singapore

Lancers of Singapore
Butterflies of Singapore

Night Walk At Lower Peirce Reservoir (19 Oct 2018)
Beetles@SG BLOG

Kampongs Lost and Found
Wan's Ubin Journal

Read more!

Work begins to restore Rail Corridor’s native flora

Gwyneth Teo Channel NewsAsia 20 Oct 18;

SINGAPORE: For decades, magnolia singapurensis, a flower native to and named after Singapore, had not been seen in the country.

Until National Parks Board (NParks) officials discovered the flower again at a swamp in Nee Soon a few years ago.

It took repeated trips back to the swamp to carefully collect the seeds of the flower, bring them to the nursery to cultivate, and study how best to grow the species elsewhere, said Ms Sharon Chan, director of the Central Nature Reserve at NParks.

There are only four known instances of magnolia singapurensis, which thrives in swampy areas, in the wild.

On Saturday (Oct 20), the native species was replanted elsewhere in Singapore for the first time.

The planting ceremony, led by Second Minister of National Development Desmond Lee and advisers from Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, marked the first phase of NParks' work to reintroduce native flora to the Rail Corridor stretch.

Read more!

Indonesia: Central Sulawesi quake, tsunami inflicted US$911 million in losses

Karina M. Tehusijarana The Jakarta Post 22 Oct 18;

The earthquake and ensuing tsunami that devastated Central Sulawesi resulted in at least Rp 13.82 trillion (US$911 million) in economic losses, according to National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) data.

As of Sunday, 2,256 people have been killed, 4,612 injured and 223,751 displaced from their homes as a result of the disasters that hit the regions of Palu, Donggala, Sigi, and Parigi Moutong.

Around 68,451 houses, 327 places of worship, 265 schools, 78 offices and 362 shops were also damaged in the quake.

"We expect the losses and damage caused by the disasters to continue to increase, since the data we are using are temporary in nature," BNPB spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said in a statement on Sunday.

Read more!

Indonesia: China-backed hydro dam threatens world's rarest orangutan

Harry PEARL AFP Yahoo News 21 Oct 18;

The Tapanuli orangutan is a newly discovered species that numbers just 800 individuals (AFP Photo/Nanang SUJANA)
Jakarta (AFP) - A billion-dollar hydroelectric dam development in Indonesia that threatens the habitat of the world's rarest great ape has sparked fresh concerns about the impact of China's globe-spanning infrastructure drive.

The site of the dam in the Batang Toru rainforest on Sumatra island is the only known habitat of the Tapanuli orangutan, a newly discovered species that numbers about 800 individuals in total.

The $1.6 billion project, which is expected to be operational by 2022, will cut through the heart of the critically endangered animal's habitat, which is also home to agile gibbons, siamangs and Sumatran tigers.

Read more!