Giant tuna from Japan fish auction arrives in Singapore

Wendy Wong Channel NewsAsia 6 Jun 13; Also on Today Online 7 Jun 14;

SINGAPORE: A giant wild tuna valued at S$35,000 was presented during a traditional Japanese fish-cutting ceremony on Monday.

Hiroyuki Yamamoto, head chef at Itacho Sushi, said: "Normally if we sell this tuna, one piece costs S$30. But this time we are selling it at S$10, we’re not thinking of profit, just good experience for Singapore people."

The tuna came from the first ceremonial auction of the year in Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market - the world's largest seafood market - and arrived in Singapore on Monday morning.

The Pacific bluefin weighed 95.4kg and was bought by Hong Kong restaurant chain Itacho Sushi to celebrate the New Year.

It is the second highest quality tuna caught this season, after a 230kg tuna priced at almost S$90,000 (7.36 million yen).

A portion of the tuna was served to the public during the ceremony, and the rest will be distributed to Itacho Sushi outlets in Singapore.

Last year, the winning bid for the top tuna was a record S$1.9 million (154.4 million yen).

- CNA/xq

Bluefin tuna price slumps at Japan auction
Channel NewsAsia 5 Jan 14;

TOKYO: A giant bluefin tuna sold at a Japanese auction on Sunday for less than five percent of the record-breaking sum paid last year amid concerns over soaring prices for the prized delicacy.

The 230-kilogramme bluefin tuna was purchased at the Tsukiji market's first auction of the year for 7.36 million yen (US$70,000), significantly down from the 155.4 million yen paid for a fish of similar quality in 2013 - slipping below 10 million yen for the first time in five years.

Bluefin is usually the most expensive fish available at Tsukiji, the biggest fish and wholesale seafood market in the world.

A piece of "otoro", or the fatty underbelly, can cost up to 2,000 yen at high-end Tokyo restaurants.

The winning bidder, Kiyoshi Kimura, president of the company that runs the popular Sushi-Zanmai chain, said the quality of the fish was as good as last year's, telling reporters: "It's the best."

The price decline was in part due to the greater number of bluefins available from Oma, the northern Japanese city that is a top site for tuna fishing.

But after overheated bidding last year saw prices skyrocket, concerns over excessive inflation saw other bidders stay away from vying with the Sushi-Zanmai chain, which won last year's auction for the record-breaking fish.

"The first auction should be a place to bid for the best-quality tuna, which is thought to be a lucky charm for business," said Makoto Kondo, spokesman for the rival Hong Kong-linked Itamae-Sushi chain.

"But it turned out to be a bidding for the sake of high prices last year."

Decades of overfishing have seen global tuna stocks crash, leading some Western nations to call for a ban on catching endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna.

Japan consumes three-quarters of the global bluefin catch, a highly prized sushi ingredient known in Japan as "kuro maguro" (black tuna) and dubbed by sushi connoisseurs the "black diamond" because of its scarcity.

The growing popularity of Japanese sushi worldwide has also led to increased demand.

- AFP/de

Why bluefin tuna have no 'fair' price
The bluefin tuna auctioned off this weekend in Japan was comparatively 'cheap', but the price can't be used as a yardstick for its conservation status
World on a Plate by Emma Bryce The Guardian 6 Jan 14;

Each January for the last several, we have celebrated the New Year with unlimited excess—not only the gluttonous, gammony kind, but the excess which heralds the year's first auction of a gargantuan bluefin tuna at the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, Japan. Each time, one fish, whose flesh is prized as an expensive delicacy in sushi restaurants, becomes a symbol of the New Year in this way.

Last January's tuna sold for a record-breaking £1.1 million (155.4 million yen), more than double the price it claimed in 2012, upholding a tradition that has seen that initial coveted bluefin growing increasingly expensive each year.

This past Sunday, everyone braced themselves for yet another mind-bending price surge, expecting the bid to reach far over £1 million. Yet, despite its larger size this time, the 230-kilogram fish sold for the equivalent of only five percent of last year's winning bid, fetching just £43,000 pounds from restaurateur Kiyoshi Kimura. He is the same bidder who won the last two auctions as well.

This year's fish carries the lowest price tag in five years. Some sources speculate this is because of the greater availability of bluefin tuna at another fish market in Japan this year, or due perhaps to other bidders backing out, intimidated by Kimura's formidable reputation at the auction. Either way, as before, this particular price reflects nothing about the conservation status of Pacific bluefin tuna—a population that was found recently to have dropped to less than four percent of its unfished levels—because the auction is too separated from reality to ever function as a yardstick.

Last year, the auction came under critical fire for attaching the excessive price tag to the prize tuna, as conservation groups drew attention to the danger of heightening demand for a creature that is already being overfished. But this latest number, so dramatically lowered, cannot be used to quell fears. The wildly fluctuating price demonstrates only that the auction is subjective and distorted, dictated almost entirely by the bidders' wealth and whims. And even despite this dramatic dip in price, which inches the fish a little closer to its actual market value, conservationists say it cannot begin to reflect the priceless nature of the fish population overall.

So how are we to feel about someone slapping a strip of otoro—the bluefin tuna's most prized belly meat—on a plate and serving it to a few thousand lucky sushi connoisseurs?

"We don't talk about whether you should eat it or not, we talk about whether it's overfished or not," says Sarah Shoffler, fishery biologist and coordinator for the US delegation to the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like Species in the North Pacific Ocean (ISC). This was the organisation that showed in January last year that Pacific bluefin tuna populations have dropped 96.4% from their unfished levels, with a striking 90% of the catch made up of younger, smaller specimens that might not yet have reproduced.

These findings focused the limelight on two international bodies that have the power to regulate the fishery of this species across the Pacific, one of which, called the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission, includes members like the United States, and Japan, the world's largest consumer of Pacific bluefin tuna. Yet the two organizations' 2013 policy response to the ISC's ominous report was weak, says Amanda Nickson, director of Global Tuna Conservation at the Pew Charitable Trusts. "They both failed [last] year to decrease the catch from current levels," she says.

The Pacific bluefin is a highly productive fish. "Spawning females can put out millions of eggs each year," Shoffler says. Currently, scientists have no evidence that this so-called 'recruitment' of new fish generations has reduced. However, there's no doubt that the tuna can be classified as overfished, based on its massive overall population dip. "It's not just that they're catching the small [younger] fish, it's that they're catching so many of them"—and have been doing this for so long—that is a cause for concern, Shoffler explains.

For stocks to improve, Nickson lists an oft-repeated string of solutions. "There should be a scientifically informed catch limit for this species, and there should be a minimum size limit," she says, adding that next on the conservation wish list is the establishment of an initial ten-year recovery plan for Pacific bluefin.

But with the fish auction becoming such a firm annual fixture, all that is hard to imagine. "There is no doubt that the ongoing demand for the bluefin tuna species is a major factor in challenges to managing the fishery," Nickson says. The mechanics of the auctions themselves are also subject to speculation, some reporters saying that they are not open bids, but rather prearranged sales that function more as a form of publicity for the market and the associated restaurants.

And if the auctions are genuine, even this year's price is a dramatically elevated version of economic reality. Andrew David Thaler, a deep-sea biologist who wrote about the tuna auction, calculates that the actual market value of this year's fish would be closer to £5,000.

The conservationist's reality is that no scenario can work. Inflate the price of bluefin tuna several fold, and you risk spurring demand to a threatening extent. Let the cost dip and fluctuate dramatically, and you create the impression that the price of the fish is purely an artefact, disassociated from the true value of depleted wild stocks.

Yet year after year, driven by the value we randomly assign to handsome slabs of meat, the cogs are set in motion. In a way, this year's lowered price tag serves as a test of ethical resolve. We're supposed to grasp that everything about this auction scenario is unrepresentative, detached from the real world, and bizarre—so much so that no one should really be eating this fish.

It's something that few like to hear—especially about the foods we deem so central to our cultural refinement. But no matter how low bidders slip, bluefin tuna can, for now, have no 'fair price' attached to its head.

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Malaysia: 200kg fish sold for RM11,000

Phuah Ken Lin New Straits Times 7 Jan 14;

PRIZE CATCH: Giant grouper bought by restaurant operator in Penang market
GEORGE TOWN: A GIANT grouper caused a stir among traders and customers at the Lebuh Cecil wet market here when it went for sale yesterday.

Onlookers gathered to catch a glimpse of the unique fish. With a length of 2.5m , the 200kg fish was caught in Kedah and brought to the market at 4pm on Sunday.

It was snapped up by seafood restaurant operator Chew Kean Ghee at a price of RM11,000 after bidding ended yesterday.

Fishmonger Jit Budhathoki, 24, said the grouper was the largest he had sold.

"I have never seen such a huge fish while trading here in the past six years.

"In fact, I wanted to keep the fish longer but the deal offered by the seafood restaurant operator was too good to turn down."

Jit said he and his colleagues took more than an hour to cut the fish into pieces before delivering it to the buyer.

'Fish may become endangered soon'
New Straits Times 8 Jan 14;

GEORGE TOWN: The fishermen who caught the giant kerapu should consider themselves lucky since large groupers usually stayed close to the seabed, says Universiti Sains Malaysia marine biologist Associate Professor Dr Aileen Tan Shau-Hwai.

Describing the fishermen's catch as a case of the "one that did not get away", she said the large grouper, or epinephelus lanceolatus, had been over-fished. The giant kerapu used to be common in the Straits of Malacca, with most of it hiding under rocks on the seabed.

"The one that was caught might have been unlucky, as it usually does not venture out of its comfort zone.

"Trawlers fishing in the area might have swept across the seabed and dragged the poor grouper," she said on last Sunday's 200kg catch in waters near the Kedah-Penang border.

She said going by the size and weight of the fish, she estimated it to be about 60 years old. Tan said the population of giant groupers had declined and would most likely become endangered soon.

"The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the giant grouper as 'vulnerable', which means it is likely to become endangered."

She also dismissed claims that the frequent encounter of the fish were related to bad omen or imminent natural disasters, including tsunami or earthquakes.

"It is not a sign of climate change either. It so happened that the fish had roamed out of its territory and got caught.

"I have dived in many parts of Malaysia. When you dive deep, you do find them at the bottom, hidden under the rocks," she said, adding that the large grouper's behaviour was similar to its smaller cousin, the common kerapu.

Tan hoped in the future, fishermen would release any large grouper that they caught for conservation purposes.

"Giant groupers are spawners. Due to their age and size, they can produce more eggs and this will ensure survival of the species."

Singaporeans and HK folk rush in for huge grouper in noodle soup
Arnold Loh The Star 8 Jan 14;

GEORGE TOWN: A Hong Kong businessman flew to Penang when told that the massive 200kg grouper caught near here would be served as noodle soup.

“I took the first available flight out of Hong Kong after receiving a text message about the catch, and arrived late Monday night,” said Johnson Chan, 67.

“Every time this eatery gets a large fish, I will be on the first available flight here,” said Chan after he had indulged on his “extra special” large bowl of fish head bee hoon soup.

Chan, who manufactures printed circuit boards in Hong Kong, was among the 500 early birds yesterday at the renowned Chew Jetty Ka Bee Cafe in Weld Quay, which paid RM11,000 for the fish caught on Monday.

The head alone tipped the scale at 60kg. The belly weighed 15kg, the liver, 17kg, and the massive swim bladder weighed 18kg.

Five men took three hours to scale, gut and cut the 200kg grouper down to manageable pieces. It took another 12 hours to turn it into the main component for fish head noodles.

Cafe proprietor Chew Kean Ghee, 41, said eating a 200kg fish was more than just a novelty and described it as “a rare chance to sample a grouper this large”.

“The belly, liver and maw of this fish are rare delicacies.

“I pressure cook the belly for three and a half hours to create a springy texture that rivals that of the sea cucumber. The liver, deep-fried, has a unique, sweet taste,” said Chew, who he has the phone numbers of over 300 regular customers in his cellphone.

Whenever he acquires a rare specimen, he flashes everyone a text message.

“Many Singaporeans have already made reservations and some have specific requests for choice parts such as the lips or the belly.

“I keep good relations with fishmongers and try to buy every big fish they have,” he said, adding that he gets about 20 big fish a year, weighing at least 50kg each.

Another recipient of Chew’s text message was state executive councillor Chow Kon Yeow, who promptly showed up with his friends for lunch.

“When I saw the front page photo of the fish in The Star, I couldn’t resist. Penang is the land of great food and this fish head bee hoon tops it,” said Chow.

Chew’s regular servings cost RM15 for a bowl with only fish fillet, and RM20 for added deep-fried fish head chunks.

Those who want to be on the “invite list” for the next big catch can message Chew at 012-465 2744.

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Best of our wild blogs: 6 Jan 14

Chek Jawa Survey (04012014) - Hiatus no more!
from Psychedelic Nature

2014 - A new year at Ubin Island
from Rojak Librarian

Banded Malayan Coral Snake
from Monday Morgue

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Best of our wild blogs: 5 Jan 14

Mating Black-winged Kites
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Night Walk At Venus Drive ( 03 Jan 2014)
from Beetles@SG BLOG

Life History of the Common Three Ring
from Butterflies of Singapore

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Malaysia: Pahang ready for second wave of floods

M. Hamzah Jamaluddin New Straits Times 5 Jan 14;

MEASURES IN PLACE: Sounding sirens among steps to be taken, says state secretary
KUANTAN: SEVERAL measures have been introduced to ensure that the evacuation of flood victims and the distribution of aid in Pahang will be carried out smoothly in the event of a second wave of floods this month.

State Natural Disaster Relief Committee chairman Datuk Seri Muhammad Safian Ismail said police and the Information Department would deploy their vehicles and sound sirens to warn the public if their areas would be flooded.

"Based on weather forecasts, the second wave of floods is predicted to occur between New Year's Eve and Monday (tomorrow). Our main focus will be Sungai Isap and Cenderawasih here," he said yesterday.

Safian, who is also state secretary, said the area here had been divided into several areas. They would each be handled by a specific agency to ensure that there were no overlapping roles and confusion among the agencies involved.

He said the area along the left side of Jalan Gambang to Kampung Ubai would be handled by the army, Bukit Rangin and Permatang Badak (Fire and Rescue Department), town centre and Cenderawasih (Civil Defence Department), Beserah to Kemaman border (Royal Malaysian Navy and Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency) and Kampung Padang to Sungai Lembing (police).

"The agencies will also prepare meals for the flood victims," he said, adding that the new approach only involved Kuantan because of the high number of complaints received during the first wave of floods last month.

As for the other districts, he said existing standard operating procedures would be carried out with some improvements, including early warning.

He said new relief centres had already been identified in Indera Mahkota here to shelter flood victims.

"If a school is turned into a relief centre, the administration staff and teachers will help distribute aid to flood victims while Kuantan Municipal Council staff will assist the Welfare Department at other buildings."

For other districts, he said the Village Security and Development Committees would help distribute aid as usual.

He said the Drainage and Irrigation Department and the local authorities had also cleaned the drainage systems in their areas, including here, where more than 30,000 people were evacuated during the first wave of floods.

On claims that the irrigation system here could not cope with heavy rains during the monsoon season, Safian said the 940mm rainfall recorded between Dec 2 and 3 last year would require three new rivers within the town areas to effectively channel the water to the sea and avoid massive flooding.

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Scientists Uncover Hidden River of Rubbish Threatening to Devastate Wildlife

Science Daily 2 Jan 14;

Thousands of pieces of plastic have been discovered, submerged along the river bed of the upper Thames Estuary by scientists at Royal Holloway, University of London and the Natural History Museum.

The sheer amount of plastic recovered shows there is an unseen stream of rubbish flowing through London which could be a serious threat to aquatic wildlife. The findings, published online in Marine Pollution Bulletin, highlight the cause for concern, not only for ecosystems around the river but for the North Sea, in to which the Thames flows.

Using nets designed to catch Chinese mitten crabs, Royal Holloway and the Natural History Museum scientists documented rubbish collected during a three-month trial. More than 8,000 pieces of plastic were collected, including large numbers of cigarette packaging, food wrappers and cups, but more than a fifth of waste was made up of sanitary products.

Dr Dave Morritt, a Senior Lecturer in Marine Biology at Royal Holloway and co-author of the study says: "The unusual aspect of the study is that these nets are originally designed to trap fish and crabs moving along the river bed, so we can see that the majority of this litter is hidden below the surface. This underwater litter must be taken into account when predicting the amount of pollution entering our rivers and seas, not just those items that we can see at the surface and washed up on shore. The potential impacts this could have for wildlife are far reaching: not only are the species that live in and around the river affected, but also those in seas that rivers feed into."

The waste collected for the study is only a small snapshot of the volume of litter which may exist at the bottom of the Thames. Plastic bags and other large items were unlikely to get caught in the small nets so the true extent of the problem is still unknown.

Dr Paul Clark, a researcher, at the Natural History Museum and co-author of the study says: "All of this waste, which was mostly plastic, was hidden underwater so Londoners probably don't realise that it's there. Plastic can have a damaging impact on underwater life. Large pieces can trap animals but smaller pieces can be in advertently eaten. This litter moves up and down the river bed depending on tides. The movement causes the pieces of plastic to break down into smaller fragments. These are small enough to be eaten by even the smallest animals, which are in turn eaten by larger fish and birds. Once digested, plastic can release toxic chemicals which are then passed through the food chain. These toxic chemicals, in high doses, could harm the health of wildlife."

Scientists are increasingly pressing for changes to both policy and consumer behaviours, as the dangers of plastics become more apparent.

David Morritt, Paris V. Stefanoudis, Dave Pearce, Oliver A. Crimmen, Paul F. Clark. Plastic in the Thames: A river runs through it. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 2013; DOI: 10.1016/j.marpolbul.2013.10.035

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Australia saw hottest year on record in 2013

BBC 4 Jan 14;

Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2013, officials have said.

Temperatures were 1.2C above the long term average, the warmest since records began in 1910, the Bureau of Meteorology said in its annual report.

The year also saw a record-warm winter that led into the most devastating fires in Sydney since 1968, it said.

The warming in Australia was consistent with global climate trends, where rising temperatures were influenced by greenhouse gases, it added.

According to the bureau, all but one of the last 10 years have had warmer-than-average temperatures in Australia.

"The Australian region warming is very similar to that seen at the global scale, and the past year emphasises that the warming trend continues," the bureau said in its annual climate statement.

The report listed significant climate events in 2013, including "the most destructive fires in the Sydney region since at least 1968", which were affected by "a record-warm and dry winter and an early spring".

Neil Plummer, from the bureau, told broadcaster ABC: "Most of the warming has occurred since around 1950, and that's consistent with the global pattern."

He said that figures from the bureau, and other bureaus around the word, provided a "body of evidence that we're all seeing a warming over Australia and a warming world".

The news will likely add to criticism from environmentalists that the new conservative government is not doing enough to tackle climate change, the BBC's Jon Donnison in Sydney reports.

Ministers recently cut funding for a number of organisations carrying out research into global warming, and the government has also pledged to abolish a carbon tax which makes the country's biggest polluters pay for the amount of greenhouse cases they produce, our correspondent adds.

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Best of our wild blogs: 4 Jan 14

Proposal for Conversations on Sustainable Singapore
from Green Future Solutions

Olive-backed sunbird courtship dance
from My Nature Experiences

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Environmental group pushes for more nature parks

Nature Society urges focus on sustainability in response to URA’s draft Master Plan
Kok Xing Hui Today Online 4 Jan 14;

SINGAPORE — Conduct environmental impact assessment on development plans, designate more areas as nature parks and plant trees that could act as buffers between development sites and the nature parks that they are built close to. These were among the recommendations tabled by the Nature Society (Singapore) in response to the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s draft Master Plan released last November.

Making public its 24-page report yesterday, the society said the Master Plan seems to involve more salvaging rather than conserving or preserving effort, with an emphasis on curbing the impact of urbanisation. A thrust towards sustainability should be employed instead, it said.

The group submitted its recommendations on Dec 19 last year, saying environmental impact assessments should be conducted for development plans to assess their impact on the biodiversity as well as the culture, recreational, economy, air and water — depending on the size of the green area. It said residents and other stakeholders should also be consulted and that such assessments must be made before the development plans are finalised and put out for tender.

While creating more public parks is laudable, the NSS felt the emphasis should be on designating wildlife-rich areas, such as the Kranji Marshes Park, as nature parks. This will help preserve the areas’ biodiversity, while making them accessible to the public for eco-friendly uses. Suggestions put forth include the “highly scenic and beautiful” Sungei Khatib Bongsu, the mudflats and mangroves of Sungei Mandai, Bukit Brown Cemetery and the secondary forest in Clementi, which has recorded 21 per cent of the total bird species in Singapore.

The society said it was grossly deficient that out of the 29 per cent of land identified as Spontaneous Greenery (comprising secondary forest, scrubland and mangrove among others) by a research team from National University of Singapore, only 4.4 per cent of that are truly or permanently protected as Nature Reserves.

Marine conservation is pretty deplorable, said the NSS, adding it had submitted proposals to the authorities requesting for four coral zones to be restored as nature areas, but only one has been designated as such so far.

The status of parks classified as nature areas should also be clearer, the group said, pointing out that some are located within military zones and the NSS has “no clue” what the sizes and boundaries of these areas are. It cited the examples of Mandai Mangrove, Khatib Bongsu, Pulau Semakau and the four coral zones, which were nature areas in 1993 but “deleted as such in the 2012 revised SGP (Singapore Green Plan)”. Nature area Chek Jawa has also been planned for reclamation at its shoreline.

The NSS also proposed that the percentage of secondary forests, which it said are extremely important and viable habitats for native fauna, under the SGP be increased from 6 to 12 per cent and that this should come from outside the nature reserves.

Related links
NSS's Feedback on the URA Master Plan 2013

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Programme aiming to connect children with nature makes comeback

Wendy Wong Channel NewsAsia 3 Jan 14;

SINGAPORE: A programme engaging children with Singapore's green spaces returns this year, with the aim of bringing them closer to nature.

The second edition of the Young Explorer Programme was launched by Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan on Friday.

The three-month programme - organised by the National Geographic Channel - takes a hands-on approach in getting children aged between seven and 10 to learn about Singapore's green corridors and spaces.

Participants go on outdoor lessons through nature trails and workshops, conducted by partners such as the National Parks Board and Nature Society Singapore.

The trails include those to the Singapore Botanic Gardens and Bottle Tree Park.

Conservation biologist and National Geographic host Casey Anderson will lead 10 participants and their parents on an expedition to Borneo's Kinabatagan River in March.

They will also be taught the importance of environmental conservation and sustainability.

Elango Velautham, assistant director at Singapore Botanic Gardens, said: "The kids can understand what nature is all about, and using that information, learn further and develop themselves to become better guardians of nature, as future citizens of Singapore."

The programme hopes to involve up to 4,000 participants this year, with registration starting on Saturday.

- CNA/xq

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Near Singapore’s Concrete, an Oasis of Nature - Pulau Ubin

Sanjay Surana New York Times 2 Jan 14;

After cycling a half-mile along a soggy clay track that sliced through a corridor of rubber trees, tailed by an electric-crimson-colored dragonfly, arches of bamboo creating a canopy, I emerged by a small, silty lake. A dilapidated jetty reached out into the water, a mint-green fishing boat loosely tied to it; a splintery, whitewashed wooden sign nailed to a sea grape tree announced “Cold Drinks.”

But there wasn’t a soul in sight, only a dozing dog that roused itself, momentarily, at my presence. Such are the simple, solitary pleasures of Pulau Ubin.

This four-square-mile island, formerly thrumming with granite quarries (Pulau Ubin is Malay for Granite Island), is only a 10-minute boat ride from its motherland, Singapore, but the gulf between the two couldn’t be more pronounced. While the Lion City, which marked its 48th year of independence last month, has grown rapidly in the last five decades — outward more than 20 percent (through land reclamation), upward (via the endless construction of office and condo towers), financially (it’s the world’s third-richest country in gross domestic product terms), and in crowdedness (it has the second-highest country population density after Monaco) — Pulau Ubin, which has no electricity or running water, is like a land that time forgot, stuck in the 1960s, when newly independent Singapore was a scattering of low-slung, stilt-housed villages. And for that, many Singaporeans are thankful.

According to folklore, hilly Ubin was formed when an elephant, a pig and a frog challenged one another to cross the waters to Johor, across the Straits of Johor. Whichever failed — and all three did — was turned to stone. The pig and elephant became Pulau Ubin, and the frog Pulau Sekudu (Frog Island), visible off Ubin’s southern coast. The stone, granite, was the island’s sole industry from the 1800s up to 1999, when the last quarry closed, and in its heyday thousands called Ubin home. Today fewer than 50 Singaporeans live here, and nature is very much in control, reason for the government to categorize Ubin as “open space and reserve land” in 2001.

Compared with the glass-clad skyscrapers, air-conditioned shopping malls and rush-hour-traffic-choked roadways of Singapore, Pulau Ubin is a grounding antidote to urban existence. This quality is its attraction, judging by the arrivals — about 2,000 each weekend, and a handful of French families, British backpackers and Singaporean youths looking to temporarily change scenery on weekdays — who come to experience a long-forgotten Singapore.

From Ubin’s jetty, reached by bare-bones wooden vessels called bumboats, and tiny main village, a few paved roads fan out to coastal campsites, dirt paths, lotus ponds or beautiful wetlands. The most striking constant is the lack of noise. Apart from the odd muted roar of a 777 landing in Singapore, sounds are limited to the crowing of red junglefowl, the chirps of the scaly-breasted munias, straw-headed bulbuls, Oriental magpies and collared kingfishers, or the wind rattling candlenut, jambu bol and nipah palm leaves.

But despite the unspoiled character of Pulau Ubin, there are ripples of concern among the holdout residents who doggedly champion the island’s anachronistic lifestyle. In January, the government published “The Population White Paper: A Sustainable Population for a Dynamic Singapore,” projecting that the city-state’s populace could hit 6.9 million by 2030 (it is currently 5.3 million), requiring 25 square miles of additional land in a country only three and a half times the size of Washington, D.C., possibly through developing “some of our reserve land.”

Two months later, the island’s householders received a letter from the government’s public housing body, ominously titled “Clearance Scheme: Clearance of Structures Previously Acquired for Development of Adventure Park on Pulau Ubin,” again raising the specter of development. In July the government quashed any rumors, stating, “There is currently no development plan for Pulau Ubin. Our intention is to keep Pulau Ubin in its rustic state for as long as possible, and as an outdoor playground for Singaporeans,” and that the earlier letter was notification of a census survey, not an eviction notice, and “could have been more carefully worded.

For now, Ubin residents believe that the island’s primitive ways are safe, and there are reasons for optimism that green spaces will continue to be valued. Last year Singapore unveiled its “50 Years of Greening” campaign (part of the nation’s vision that it be known as a City in a Garden), and in April Singapore announced its application to Unesco for World Heritage site status for the 154-year-old Botanic Garden. On the day of my visit to Ubin, National Parks Board employees were diligently tagging birds to study their habitats and migratory patterns. (Board statistics also flaunt the island’s biodiversity: 603 species of plant, 207 species of birds, 153 species of butterfly, 39 species of reptile.)

After the restlessness of Singapore, Pulau Ubin’s gentle wilderness is a relief. I biked to Chek Jawa Wetlands on Ubin’s southeast coast, a preserve that incorporates six types of ecosystem (including coral rubble, coastal forest and mangroves, all visible from a boardwalk); it is home to the piercingly vocal oriental pied hornbill, has a Tudor house for a visitors’ center, and a 70-foot viewing tower that once summited, clichés aside, will make a visitor feel like the king of the jungle. Cycling west, I spotted an elderly couple milling around outside their tin-roofed home. Ahmad Benkasim and Sapia Bentitayeb have been married 50 years (Benkasim has lived on the island for all of his 70 years), and their love of Ubin is evident. “Here we have everything, rubber, durian, jackfruit,” Mr. Benkasim said. “In Singapore you have what ... steel? There it is hot and noisy. Here, you have peace, and at night it is cool. We have three children in Singapore, but still like to be here. This is our house.”

Ubin’s parallel universe soon feels normal. On the main island, shade comes courtesy of man-made walkways or the shadows of skyscrapers; here, the abundance of trees ensures shade is ubiquitous. In Singapore, office workers are glued to smartphone screens; here, visitors quickly learn to look in all directions, with visual stimulation from a wild boar muscling through the forests to the side, or a Malayan water monitor slinking into the reeds by the roadside up ahead, or a troupe of long-tail macaques leaping from branch to branch overhead.

Ubin has Singapore’s only off-road mountain biking track, a circuit of gravel trails, rocky hills and flowering meadows. And Puaka Hill, the island’s highest point, provided a vista that I hope to never forget. Below, dark blue waters filled the abandoned Ubin Quarry, the surrounding forests giving it the appearance of a giant sapphire on a bed of emeralds. Singapore’s outline stretched across the horizon. That there was nobody with whom to share the view was reward in itself.

IF YOU GO

How to Get There

Bumboats to Pulau Ubin leave from Changi Point Ferry Terminal when 12 passengers are ready to board, cost 2.50 Singapore dollars (about $2 U.S.) each, or charter the whole boat for 30 dollars. To reach the terminal by public transport, take the MRT East-West subway line to Tanah Merah, then bus No. 2 to Changi Village Bus Terminal (the last stop), right by the ferry terminal. Or take the MRT to Simei and bus No. 9 to the “After Changi Golf Course” stop; from there the terminal is a five-minute walk.

Getting Around

The main village has many bike shops. For about 8 dollars (10 dollars on weekends), I rented a 21-speed Raleigh mountain bike from Comfort Bicycle Rental. Cyclists planning to attack Ketam Mountain Bike Park’s double-black-diamond trails can rent Cannondale and Trek bikes for20 dollars per day.

Dining

A few coffee shops, as they are known in the local vernacular (cafes with some standard dishes), dot the village but the only full-service restaurant is Seasons Live Seafood. It has large plastic tanks filled with crustaceans and fish, and prepares better-than-average renditions of chile crab, Hong Kong steamed fish and drunken prawns. The chilled fresh young coconut is a lifesaver after a day on the bike.

Staying

There are basic campsites on the island (campers have to register at the park kiosk by the Ubin jetty), and the average, overpriced Celelstial Ubin Beach Resort close to the jetty, but Pulau Ubin is perfect as a long day trip.

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Malaysia: A Mahathir Solution To Flooding

Bernama 3 Jan 14;

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 3 (Bernama) -- Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has suggested that the first floor of buildings and houses be raised in order to prevent floods and reduce damage from the recurring disaster in the future.

He said the first floor - lobby or entrance hall - of a building should be raised to about 12 feet or more above the level of the street or the road, with concrete walls surrounding the space below the first floor extending down to surround the car park below the building.

In the latest post on his blog at www.chedet.cc, Mahathir also said that a ramp must be built from the road to the entrance of the building on the first floor and another ramp for the cars to drive down to the multi-level car park below.

"The road or street will become virtual drains during the floods due to the rain or the tide. This will help the floodwaters to drain quickly into the canals or rivers as soon as the tide goes down or the rain stops," he said.

On the east coast where floods regularly occur during the monsoon rains, Mahathir said, the simplest solution was to go back to building houses on stilts like the old Malay houses.

"The first floor of the houses must be above the highest floodwater mark. The stilts supporting the houses must be sturdy and buried deep in the ground. Concrete should be used," he said.

To avoid cars from 'drowning' during the monsoon season, Mahathir said, a ramp could be built so that the cars could be driven up to the first floor.

He said the government had spent quite a substantial amount of money for flood relief and, by insisting that houses be built on stilts, the money would be saved.

"Part of the savings can be used to subsidise the cost of the stilts, at least initially. The house-owners or occupants too would save money," he said.

Mahathir said that if the idea was to be accepted, architects could design the stilts to look attractive while competitions could also be held for new styles of houses on stilts.

"If we don't do something, every year thousands will have to be evacuated and a few will lose their lives. And lots of money would be wasted on food, evacuation and repairing flood damage," he said.

Last month, Johor, Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan and Sarawak were hit by floods following incessant heavy rain and the overflow of rivers in several areas, forcing thousands of residents to be relocated and incurring much damage to property.

-- BERNAMA

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