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OLIVIA MIWIL New Straits Times 13 Apr 18;
TAMBUNAN: A flowering plant that can grow up to 3.5 metres, one of the world’s largest species, has been spotted here.
The Amorphophallus titanum, also known as titan arum, boasts a stunning flowering structure which is accompanied by the putrid scent of rotting flesh.
Usually found in Indonesia and known as Bangkai Raksasa, Kampung Kuyungon villagers here said the plant was also known as Lopung-Lopung.
Mairinc Patrick said two weeks ago, her family spotted the huge plant at their farm which grew to the height of her 5-year-old nephew.
“We have seen the plant before, but at that time, it was about a metre tall.
“The stem of the lupong-lupong will be the only part that grows at the initial stage and only later will the leaf come out,” she said, adding some locals said the plant was edible.
Mairinc added the plant will have pungent smell when it dies after about two weeks.
Netizens have also claimed to have seen the species grow behind their houses.
District officer Thomas Logijin when contacted said there were reports of new discoveries of titan arum plants growing in other parts in Tambunan.
According to website www.arkive.org, the titan arum lives in the rainforests of western Sumatra, on steep hillslopes that are between 120 and 365 metres above sea level.
The species is classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants.
The deforestation of the Sumatra rainforest affected titan arum numbers directly, and the situation also impacted the rhinoceros hornbill, an important seed distributor for such plant species.
Darwito Antara 14 Apr 18;
Padang, W Sumatra (ANTARA News) - The Office of Marine and Fisheries of West Sumatra Province will increase sea turtle conservation areas in order to maintain its population.
"Currently, the authority of the conservation area is moving from city or district to province, while we are still making a territorial mapping," Head of West Sumatra Office of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Yosmeri remarked here on Saturday.
He stated that the conservation areas are located in Padang City, Pariaman City, Padang Pariaman District, and Coast District. Moreover, it will be also be built in West Pasaman District and Agam.
"We will try to improve the facilities in conservation areas, such as in Pariaman City," he added.
In addition, the fish ponds that contain marine creatures will also be built in Pariaman`s conservation area.
He further stated that the pond will later look like a marine aquarium and attract tourists, providing better economy to the local people.
The rate of West Sumatra people eating sea turtles, both eggs and meat, is quite high. The local government and related institute must educate the public on avoiding consuming sea turtles and on the punishment for those who violate the rule.
The people of Mentawai Islands eat sea turtle meat as part of their custom, but they get poisoned after eating it.
In fact, in Mentawai Islands, there is a rare sea turtle named the leatherback sea turtle.
"If possible, we will also build a special conservation area for leatherback sea turtles in Mentawai District," he explained.
Antara 13 Apr 18;
Beijing (ANTARA News) - Indonesia and China has agreed to develop a multifunction laboratory for a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor.
The agreement was signed by Indonesian Minister of Research, Technology, and Higher Education Mohamad Nasir and Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Wang Zhigang in Beijing on Thursday night (Apr 12).
The agreement document was inked on the sidelines of the launch of the ASEAN-China Innovation Year 2018 and the China-ASEAN Innovation Forum.
"China`s innovation needs the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Similarly, ASEAN`s innovation needs China," Zhigang noted.
In addition to Indonesia, China also agreed to develop a railway system research center with Thailand, develop a new and renewable energy laboratory with Laos, and develop radar and communications satellites with Myanmar.
China has collaborated on science and technology projects with 158 countries and is involved in 200 international scientific and technological organizations, according to local media.
"We continue to support the openness and cooperation in science and technology and technology innovation more broadly and deeply," Wang noted.
The Chinese Ministry will also seek to synergize the idea of the Silk Road and the Maritime Lane of the 21st Century or "Belt and Road" with the ASEAN development plan to build the China-ASEAN community.
Minister Nasir had paid a working visit to China on April 12-15, 2018. He had an opportunity to hold a bilateral meeting with Zhigang at the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology office in Beijing.
Nasir is also scheduled to meet with representatives from the Tsinghua University and members of the Indonesian Students Association in China at the Indonesian Embassy in Beijing on Friday.
Nasir will continue his visit to Chengdu, Sichuan Province, on Saturday (Apr 14) to observe the Technology Industry Development Zone, the Research and Development Center at Xinan Jiaotong University, the Giant Panda Research and Development Center, and Dufu Museum.
David Shukman BBC 13 Apr 18;
The global shipping industry has for the first time agreed to cut its emissions of greenhouse gases.
The move comes after talks all week at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London.
Shippings has previously been excluded from climate agreements, but under the deal, emissions will be reduced by 50% by 2050 compared to 2008 levels.
One minister from a Pacific island state described the agreement as "history in the making".
Shipping generates roughly the same quantity of greenhouse gas as Germany and, if it were accounted for as a nation, would rank as the world's sixth biggest emitter.
Like aviation, it had been excluded from climate negotiations because it is an international activity while both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement involved national pledges to reduce greenhouse gases.
Plea for action on shipping emissions
Shipping faces demands to cut CO2
The United States, Saudi Arabia, Brazil and a few other countries had not wanted to see a target for cutting shipping emissions at all.
By contrast the European Union, including Britain, and small island states had pushed for a cut of 70-100%.
So the deal for a 50% reduction is a compromise which some argue is unrealistic while others say does not far enough.
Kitack Lim, secretary-general of the International Maritime Organization, who had chaired the controversial talks, said: "This initial strategy is not a final statement but a key starting point."
The tiny Pacific nation of the Marshall Islands had opened the conference with a plea for action.
Although it has the world's second largest register of shipping, it had warned that failure to achieve deep cuts would threaten the country's survival as global warming raises sea levels.
As the talks concluded, the nation's environment minister David Paul said: "To get to this point has been hard, very hard. And it has involved compromises by all countries. Not least by vulnerable island nations like my own who wanted something, far, far more ambitious than this one."
Mr Paul added: "This is history in the making… if a country like the Marshall Islands, a country that is very vulnerable to climate change, and particularly depends on international shipping, can endorse this deal, there is no credible excuse for anybody else to hold back."
Laurent Parente, the ambassador of Vanuatu, also a Pacific island nation, was not satisfied but hoped the deal would lead to tougher action in future.
"It is the best we could do and is therefore what this delegation will support as the initial strategy that we have no doubt will evolve to higher ambitions in the near future."
By contrast, the head of the US delegation to the talks, Jeffrey Lantz, made clear his country's opposition to the deal.
"We do not support the establishment of an absolute reduction target at this time," he said.
"In addition, we note that achieving significant emissions reductions, in the international shipping sector, would depend on technological innovation and further improvements in energy efficiency."
Mr Lantz reiterated that the US, under President Trump, has announced its withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
He also criticised the way the IMO had handled the talks, describing it as "unacceptable and not befitting this esteemed organisation."
But a clear majority of the conference was in favour of action.
The UK's shipping minister, Nusrat Ghani, described the agreement as " a watershed moment with the industry showing it is willing to play its part in protecting the planet".
The move will send a signal through the industry that rapid innovation is now needed.
Ships may have to operate more slowly to burn less fuel. New designs for vessels will be more streamlined and engines will have to be cleaner, maybe powered by hydrogen or batteries, or even by the wind.
Christopher Torchia, Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Apr 18;
MIKUMI NATIONAL PARK, Tanzania (AP) -- The elephant staggered and keeled over in the tall grass in southern Tanzania, where some of the world's worst poaching has happened.
It wasn't a killer who targeted her but a conservation official, immobilizing her with a dart containing drugs. Soon she was snoring loudly, and they propped open her trunk with a twig to help her breathe. They slid a 26-pound (12-kilogram) GPS tracking collar around the rough skin of her neck and injected an antidote, bringing her back to her feet. After inspecting the contraption with her trunk, she ambled back to her family herd.
The operation was part of a yearlong effort to collar and track 60 elephants in and around Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve, widely acknowledged as 'Ground Zero' in the poaching that has decimated Africa's elephants in recent years. The Associated Press traveled to the area to witness how the battle to save the continent's elephants is gaining some momentum, with killings declining and some herds showing signs of recovery. Legal ivory markets are shrinking worldwide, and law enforcement has broken up some key trafficking syndicates, say experts.
But it's far too early to declare a turnaround. Poachers are moving to new areas and traffickers are adapting, aided by entrenched corruption. The rate of annual elephant losses still exceeds the birth rate. And the encroachment of human settlements is reducing the animals' range.
"The trend in poaching is going in the right direction, but we have a long way to go before we can feel comfortable about the future for elephants," said Chris Thouless of Save the Elephants, a group based in Kenya, where elephant numbers are rising again.
In a move to crack down on demand, Britain this month announced a ban on ivory sales. In China, trade in ivory and ivory products is illegal as of 2018. And in the U.S., a ban on ivory apart from items older than 100 years went into place in 2016.
If poaching can be brought under control here in Tanzania, there is hope that the killing of elephants can be stemmed elsewhere on the continent.
Africa's elephant population has plummeted from millions around 1900 to at least 415,000 today. Intelligent and emotional, with highly developed social behavior, elephants have been hunted for their ivory for centuries. A ban on commercial trade in ivory across international borders went into effect in 1990, but many countries continued to allow the domestic buying and selling of ivory.
Increased demand from consumers in China fueled a new wave of killings.
In Tanzania alone, the elephant population declined by 60 percent to 43,000 between 2009 and 2014, according to the government. Much of the slaughter happened in an ecosystem comprising the Selous and the adjacent Mikumi National Park. A tourist guide told The Associated Press that several years ago, he and a client saw an elephant family at sunset in the Selous reserve. They returned the next day to the ghastly sight of carcasses of elephants slaughtered for their tusks.
The killings in Tanzania appear to have slowed down. A count in the Selous-Mikumi area last year added up 23 carcasses of poached elephants, just 20 percent of the number found four years earlier. And African elephant poaching has declined to pre-2008 levels after reaching a peak in 2011, according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
It's a positive trend, but there is speculation there is a dearth of elephants to kill in many areas.
"All the 'easy' elephants are dead," said Drew McVey, East Africa manager for the WWF conservation group.
In Tanzania's Selous region, more newborn elephants are visible and confident elephants are moving more widely outside unfenced, officially protected areas, said Edward Kohi, principal research officer with the state Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute and leader of the GPS collaring program funded by WWF. The collars are designed to allow rangers to track the movement of elephant herds, and then mobilize to protect them if they move into poaching hotspots. By receiving satellite-transmitted data on mobile phones, rangers could also intercept elephants that drift into a human settlement or fields of crops.
Adam Rajeta, a farmer and cattle herder living next to Mikumi park, said elephants sometimes cause havoc.
"During the harvesting season, they come close to our homes," Rajeta said. "When they do, we beat drums and make noise to scare them and thus protect ourselves. Only with God's mercy do they leave our neighborhood."
There has also been movement to crack down on trafficking. Tanzanian President John Magufuli, who took office in 2015, took a hard line and authorities have arrested key suspects linked to trafficking syndicates.
However, the fight against the illegal ivory trade is like squeezing a balloon — when gains are made in one area, such as Tanzania, the killings intensify in another spot, like Mozambique's Niassa reserve to the south, which is linked to the Selous by a wildlife corridor. And international seizures of smuggled ivory appear to be as large as ever, a possible sign of hurried efforts by traffickers to move stockpiles before business gets too difficult.
On Friday, media in Mozambique reported the seizure by authorities of more than a ton of elephant ivory that had been stashed in a shipping container by traffickers. It had been bound for Cambodia, the reports said.
Some poaching gangs in Niassa are Tanzanian and "there is a lot of movement across the border" that includes other illicit trade, including in timber and minerals, said James Bampton, Mozambique director for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. The group co-manages Niassa with the government.
There are probably fewer than 2,000 elephants in Niassa, Bampton said. That's a small fraction of the estimated number a decade ago in Mozambique's main elephant refuge. Periodic thefts of confiscated ivory and rhino horn in Mozambique also raise concerns about official collusion with traffickers.
Another worrying development is evidence of increased processing of ivory tusks into jewelry and trinkets within Africa, instead of the old method of shipping raw ivory out of the continent. This allows traffickers to transport ivory in smaller quantities that are hard to detect and avoids increased scrutiny of ivory-carving operations in Asia.
The challenges of protecting wildlife were apparent to AP journalists who traveled with the collaring team in Mikumi park next to the Selous reserve, a U.N. world heritage site.
Plans to deploy a helicopter to help spot and herd the elephants fell through. Vehicles got stuck in mud. One morning, a startled wildlife official sprinted to his vehicle after briefly entering a toilet labeled "Gents" at a dirt airstrip. A female lion who had been reclining in a stall sauntered out.
The team sometimes tracked elephants on foot, studying big round footprints, broken branches and the freshness of elephant dung for clues to their whereabouts.
Just two out of a planned five elephants were collared over three days in the Mikumi park. The conservationists refrained from darting elephant matriarchs, instead choosing younger females that they know will follow the group. They also intend to collar often solitary bull elephants.
The elephants displayed their social bonds in one instance, retreating into a defensive circle after hearing the pop of the dart gun. When a female was hit, the others appeared to try to prop up their woozy companion before fleeing.
Suspected traffickers are a threat to more than elephants. In August 2017, conservationist Wayne Lotter, credited with helping Tanzanian authorities dismantle some ivory smuggling operations, was murdered in Dar es Salaam in an apparent hit. Eight people have been arrested for the murder, including two bank officials and several businessmen.
Tanzania's Selous-Mikumi region is known as one of the biggest killing fields for African elephants, but the vast wilderness of about 23,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometers) still offers hope for the world's biggest land animal.
In 50 to 100 years, said Kohi, the collaring team leader, "when the human population is skyrocketing, this will be one of the important areas for the conservation of elephants."
AFP Yahoo News 13 Apr 18;
Tampa (AFP) - Iconic animals like elephants, tigers, lions and panda bears are everywhere in movies, books and toystores. But their wide pop culture presence skews public perception of how endangered these animals really are, researchers said Thursday.
Online surveys, zoo websites, animated films and school questionnaires were scoured by US and French researchers for the study, published in journal PLOS Biology.
Using these sources, scientists made a list of the top 10 most charismatic animals: tigers, lions, elephants, giraffes, leopards, pandas, cheetahs, polar bears, gray wolves and gorillas.
Researchers also found that almost 49 percent of all the non-teddy bear stuffed animals sold in the United States on Amazon were one of these 10 charismatic animals.
In France, 800,000 "Sophie the giraffe" baby toys were sold in 2010, more than eight times the numbers of giraffes living in Africa.
Lead author Franck Courchamp of the University of Paris said that these animals are so common in pop culture and marketing materials that they create a "virtual population" in people's minds, one that is doing far better in perception than reality.
"Unknowingly, companies using giraffes, cheetahs or polar bears for marketing purposes may be actively contributing to the false perception that these animals are not at risk of extinction, and therefore not in need of conservation," Courchamp said.
The average French citizen "will see more virtual lions through photos, cartoons, logos and brands in one month than there are wild lions left in West Africa," said the report.
Researchers urged companies that use these animals in their marketing to donate a portion of the proceeds to conservation groups.
"The appearance of these beloved animals in stores, in movies, on television, and on a variety of products seems to be deluding the public into believing they are doing okay," said co-author William Ripple, a professor of forest ecology at Oregon State University.
"If we don't act in a concerted effort to save these species, that may soon be the only way anyone will see them."
Ripple added that "a major threat faced by nearly all of them is direct killing by humans, especially from hunting and snaring," a reality he described as "sadly ironic, as these are some of our most beloved animals."
Karl Plume, Reuters Yahoo News 14 Apr 18;
LANGLEY, British Columbia (Reuters) - Layers of squirming black soldier fly larvae fill large aluminum bins stacked 10-high in a warehouse outside of Vancouver. They are feeding on stale bread, rotting mangoes, overripe cantaloupe and squishy zucchini.
But this is no garbage dump. It's a farm.
Enterra Feed, one of an emerging crop of insect growers, will process the bugs into protein-rich food for fish, poultry - even pets. After being fattened up, the fly larvae will be roasted, dried and bagged or pressed to extract oils, then milled into a brown powder that smells like roasted peanuts.
The small but growing insect farming sector has captured attention and investments from some heavyweights in the $400 billion-a-year animal feed business, including U.S. agricultural powerhouse Cargill Inc [CARG.UL], feed supplier and farm products and services company Wilbur-Ellis Co and Swiss-based Buhler Group, which makes crop processing machinery.
Fast food giant McDonald's is studying using insects for chicken feed to reduce reliance on soy protein.
"This pioneering work is currently at the proof-of-concept stage," Nicola Robinson, McDonald's Corp sustainable supply chain manager, told Reuters. "We are encouraged by initial results and are committed to continuing to support further research."
The fact that such global food production giants are turning to insects illustrates the lengths they will go to find alternative sources of protein that are profitable and sustainable as animal feed or additives to human food. Bugs are just one many alternatives being studied or developed by major agricultural firms. Others include peas, canola, algae and bacterial proteins.
Global population growth and an expanding middle class have raised per capita meat consumption by 50 percent over the past four decades, fueling fears of a protein pinch. Traditional sources of the key macronutrient are growing increasingly unreliable amid a changing global climate and worries about the environmental impacts of row-crop farms and commercial fishing.
Benoit Anquetil - strategy and technology lead for Cargill's animal nutrition business - called developing new sources of protein a "long-term opportunity."
"Sustainable protein is a key challenge, which is why Cargill is evaluating the viability of insects as part of the solution to nourish the world," Anquetil said.
People tend to pivot from grain- and plant-based diets to meat-based meals as they grow wealthier. The problem is that as meat demand grows, feed production needs to grow faster. It typically takes about two pounds of feed to produce a pound of chicken. For pork, it takes four pounds.
Expanded cultivation of soybeans - the foundation of livestock and poultry rations for decades - is not a long term solution because it contributes to deforestation and overuse of harsh farm chemicals.
In addition, supplies of fishmeal - an aquaculture feed made from wild-caught fish and fish by-products - have fluctuated wildly with climactic cycles, overfishing and regulation to prevent it.
Nutritionists and scientists have long touted insect consumption for humans as a sustainable and cheap source of protein, but snacking on bugs is a stomach-churning prospect for people in many countries and cultures. Introducing insect protein further down the food chain may be more palatable.
The bug business still has a few hurdles ahead - like the yuck factor, even when the insects are fed to animals. Regulators will also need to be convinced that ground-up bugs won't introduce new toxins into the food supply.
"They are considered filth in the food system," said Virginia Emery, CEO of Beta Hatch, which grows mealworms above an auto body shop near Seattle-Tacoma Airport.
FEEDING BUGS TO FISH
Cargill conducted an insect-based feed trial on poultry in 2015, but the company's efforts with insects have since focused on bolstering its growing aquaculture business, where demand for alternative proteins is most acute.
Beta Hatch is chasing the same market. The small company's mealworms - larvae of the mealworm beetle - will likely end up as fish food as Emery expands her business with the help of an investment from Wilbur Ellis, whose fish-farming customers have pressed for sustainable alternatives to fishmeal.
"Fishmeal has a limited supply, and aquaculture is continuing to grow," said Andrew Loder, president of Wilbur Ellis' feed division. "We see insect meal as one piece of a solution."
Fish farming is growing fast with growing consumer demand and increasing concerns about overfishing, resulting in catch restrictions in many depleted fisheries. Warming oceans in some areas have also disrupted supplies.
That means fish eaten by humans will increasingly come from farms - driving up demand and prices for fish feed.
Fishmeal is made from wild-caught anchoveta, herring and other oily fish that represents about 25 percent of a typical aquaculture feed ration, which typically also includes grains or soybean meal.
But fish farms cannot rely solely on crop-based feeds to nourish their naturally carnivorous stock.
"You can feed an animal all grain, and it will grow, but it may not grow as quickly and efficiently and may be prone to disease," said Andrew Vickerson, chief technology officer at Enterra.
HIGH IN PROTEIN, FAT
Insect farmers grow black soldier fly larvae and mealworms because they are docile, easy to grow and high in protein and digestible fat.
Mealworms can be grown with little water and studies have shown they can "rescue" nutrients by consuming grains not fit for livestock production without passing on harmful toxins. Black soldier fly larvae also contain high levels of calcium and iron and can feed on a broad array of food waste.
Crickets - a favorite for human consumption in some countries - are by contrast picky eaters. They're also noisy, and can damage nearby crops if they escape.
Enterra is expanding to a second commercial-scale plant in Calgary within the next year and targeting opening similar facilities in other North American cities every year for the next five years, with financing from Calgary-based Avrio Capital and UK-based Wheat Sheaf.
Protix opened its first commercial black soldier fly larvae plant in the Netherlands in 2017 and will break ground on a second facility there later this year, aided by a $50 million investment from Buhler. The Dutch company, working with fish farmers, has also launched a brand of "friendly salmon," fed with rations containing insect meal instead of fishmeal.
"If we are able to be successful in Europe, then this will be a global solution," said Protix CEO Kees Aarts.
Neither company would disclose the production costs or capacity, citing proprietary technology. But both said their insect feed prices are on par with to slightly above competing feeds like fishmeal.
Ohio-based EnviroFlight, a black soldier fly larvae producer, will break ground on the first commercial-scale insect meal production facility in the United States near Cincinnati later this year.
REGULATORY HURDLES
Humans have been eating insects for centuries, but the practice is not common in many western cultures and still spooks food regulators.
Black soldier fly larvae production has gained a handful of approvals in Europe, Canada and the United States, mostly for use in fish farms. Poultry, swine and pet food regulations are not as far along.
"Since fish eat insects in the wild naturally, it is easier for consumers to wrap their heads around insects as part of the feed," Cargill's Anquetil said.
Thorough safety testing of insects as feed will be critical for consumer acceptance, said Thomas Gremillion, director for the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America.
"If there was a big change in how animals are being fed, I'd want to see some extra scrutiny of whether the animals were accumulating any kinds of toxins from the insects," he said.
It will take years for the insect farming sector to scale up. But growing the business to even a small market share would make a big difference to the feed industry and the environment, said Robert Nathan Allen, an insect farmer and chairman of the North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture.
"If we're replacing 5 or 10 percent of the proteins that are normally in those feeds with insect protein," Allen said, "That's a lot of resources saved."
(Reporting by Karl Plume in Chicago; Additional reporting by Ben Nelms in Langley, British Columbia; Editing by Simon Webb and Brian Thevenot)
A commentary by Dan Southerland Radio Free Asia 13 Apr 18;
Sand has become a hot commodity needed to support construction work in Southeast Asia.
The demand for sand has sharply driven up prices for sand in recent years, drawing the attention of unscrupulous local officials, businessmen, and sand-dredging companies.
Unfortunately, the sand dredging has damaged the environment in several countries by disrupting sediment flows and fishing grounds.
Vietnam is a prime example of what can go wrong.
Experts say that Vietnam may soon run out of the sand that it needs to build both housing and highways. But estimates vary as to how quickly this might occur.
The Global Construction Review (CBR) reported in October, 2017 that Vietnam was exploring ways to produce artificial sand after some experts warned that it could run out of the naturally occurring material within five years.
According to scientists from Vietnam’s Institute of Transport Science and Technology, Vietnam needs about 100 million cubic meters of sand every year to keep pace with the country’s steady growth rate.
Vietnam may run out of sand as soon as 2020 if dredging for sand exports continues, according to other government experts.
Focus on Singapore
Most of the sand dredged in Vietnam has been shipped to Singapore, which has used sand extensively for land reclamation.
In early 2011, the International Dredging Review (IDR), which provides news on the worldwide dredging industry, noted that Singapore had benefited from its reputation for fostering an open and corruption-free economy.
“But Singapore’s insatiable demand for sand is fueling charges of wrecked ecosystems, involvement by criminal organizations, and official corruption across Asia,” said David Murray, the author of the IDR report.
The corruption included a “sex-for-sand” scandal, he said, but he didn’t provide details regarding the alleged scandal.
Over five decades, Singapore had increased its land area by an estimated 20 percent. The city-state’s Changi Airport is built on reclaimed land.
Singapore’s government has denied any knowledge of corrupt activities in overseeing sand deals and dredging permits.
But credible reports about sand-dredging which has caused environmental damage in Southeast Asia have raised questions about the city state’s reputation for being green and clean.
Vietnam’s failure to protect the environment
Despite official Vietnamese crackdowns on illegal sand exports, enough corrupt local Vietnamese officials still look the other way to allow tens of thousands of cubic meters of sand to be exported per day, according to local media reports.
Not every kind of sand works well in land reclamation. Sand from a desert, for example, won’t work. A desert’s wind-worn sands are too smooth to work. But certain types of sand from Vietnam and Cambodia seem to meet Singapore’s requirements
The sand dredging has exacerbated environmental damage done in recent years to the Mekong River Basin and its fisheries. Millions of Vietnamese and Cambodians rely on the Mekong region’s fish as their main source of protein.
The dredging is occurring in numerous rivers and estuaries in Vietnam but most intensively in central Vietnamese provinces, including Quang Bin, Quang Tri, Ha Tinh, Quang Nam, Binh Dinh, Thua Thien-Hue, Binh Thuan, and Ninh Thuan.
Fortunately, while Vietnam’s media are heavily controlled, a number of Vietnamese newspapers and websites do investigative work, and one of them has reported extensively on the dredging issue.
Tuoi Tre (Youth), a popular Vietnamese newspaper, published an investigative series in March of last year, which showed how the illegal sand trading system works.
The series, entitled “Tracing the Vietnamese sand drain to Singapore,” reported that “quite a few” Vietnamese companies were taking advantage of sand privileges authorized by the Vietnamese government to make huge illegal profits.
At the end of 2009, the government banned sand exports, but in 2013 it loosened the regulation, allowing entrepreneurs to export sand from sea beds and rivers.
But these companies ended up not dredging the sand themselves. They made a profit by selling the rights to other companies.
Tuoi Tre reported that in one case last year dozens of local lobster fishermen took matters into their own hands.
Described as fed up with official inaction, the fishermen attacked sand miners whom they blamed for destroying their livelihoods.
After the Tuoi Tre series appeared, Vietnam’s Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh admitted that some local officials had covered up for the damage done by sand dredging.
Much of the work was being done at night by hundreds of dredging ships, according to a government report.
The deputy prime minister ordered penalties for local officials who failed to manage the problem, asked for more intense inspections of the mining, and said that a police campaign would be launched to support the effort from March 15 to June 1, 2017.
But it doesn’t appear that this effort has been totally effective.
One possible solution is to make sand artificially.
Vietnam’s Institute of Science and Technology presented a report to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport saying that artificial sand could be made for up to 15 percent more cheaply than that produced by sand dredging.
VnExpress, a popular website, said on March 19 this year that Vietnam is exploring the possibility of producing artificial sand from sedentary rock, which is abundant in the southern part of the country.
Artificial sand has been used in many parts of the world in construction projects.
Meanwhile, a major report on sand dredging in Vietnam published on March 18 this year by National Geographic magazine states that sand has become “an astonishingly hot commodity.”
“Sand is the key ingredient in concrete, the essential building material of Vietnam’s fast-growing cities,” the report says, “and that is wreaking havoc not only on Vietnam’s rivers, but also on the all-important Mekong Delta.”
For centuries, the Delta, which is the home to nearly 18 million people, has been replenished by sediment carried down from the waters flowing down the Mekong River from the glaciers of Tibet.
But in recent years the sediment flow has been severely reduced by Chinese dams on the Mekong upstream from Vietnam and Cambodia as well as by sand dredging and climate change.
Cambodia’s lost sand
Radio Free Asia has reported nearly a dozen times on the environmental damage caused by sand dredging in Cambodia since 2010 and as recently as February of this year.
And the British non-governmental organization Global Witness warned nine years ago that Cambodia’s elite were violating the country’s own laws by profiting behind the scenes from its extractive industries, including sand dredging.
In May 2010, Global Witness published a report titled “Shifting Sands,” which accused Prime Minister Hun Sen’s family and friends of essentially selling off Cambodia’s sand.
A Global Witness team examined a sand-mining permit that was stamped by an official in Singapore’s embassy in Thailand. This indicated some level of Singaporean complicity in Cambodia’s corrupt sand trade deals.
Not surprisingly, Global Witness is currently banned from working in Cambodia.
Monitoring sand dredging in Cambodia can be a risky business.
Two activists of the NGO Mother Nature Cambodia (MNC) were jailed in September of 2017 for filming two sand-carrying vessels off the coast of an economic land concession in southern Cambodia’s Koh Kong Province.
According to the NGO’s founder Alex Gonzalez Davidson, the two activists were found guilty in “a circus-like trial” and subsequently released on suspended sentences in mid-February.
“One of the two is continuing with his activism even more resolutely than before his illegal jailing,” said Gonzalez Davidson.
Gonzalez Davison had been deported from Cambodia on the orders of Hun Sen.
But despite his deportation and the jailing of a total of five of the NGO’s members, he says, “we didn’t disband or shut down. On the contrary, we grew bigger, and new activists joined us.”
Gonzalez Davidson says that his group’s monitoring campaign had some success in halting the exports of sand to Singapore, which from 2008 to 2016 reached millions of tons of sand used for land reclamation.
In November, 2016 sand exports to Singapore appeared to halt altogether, according to MNC research.
In July 2017, following numerous local protests against the sand dredging, the Cambodian government had banned exports of two kinds of sand being extracted from the Cambodian coastal province of Koh Kong.
However, exports of silica sand, the kind of sand that the two MNC members were monitoring, continues, with an estimated 20 to 40,000 tons of that sand being exported to Taiwan each month and other smaller quantities going possibly going to China.
Dan Southerland is RFA's founding executive editor.
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CHEONG KOON HEAN Today Online 12 Apr 18;
While Singapore faces demographic challenges, climate change and technological disruptions, it can continue to improve its good living environment through long-term planning and innovative urban solutions, said Housing and Development Board CEO Dr Cheong Koon Hean.
Among others strategies, the Republic can adopt a concept of creating a virtual cycle of land recovery, thus enabling a constant rejuvenation of Singapore for future generations, she said in delivering an IPS-Nathan lecture on Tuesday (April 10). Below is an excerpt from Dr Cheong’s prepared speech for the lecture, her second in a series of three lectures.
The city state of Singapore, at just 720 square kilometres, is about half the size of metropolitan London.
Yet it has to house many facilities to support its economic and social growth, including major uses such as airports and ports, energy, waste and water management and military infrastructure, all of which are needed to support a sovereign nation.
Going forward, Singapore will face challenges from demographic changes, climate change and technology disruptions. How can it continue to build an attractive urban future with a good quality of life for its people?
Today, Singapore already adopts a long-term strategic planning approach. It is crucial that Singapore takes a long-term view when it plans.
Given our land constraints, we need to develop strategies that will safeguard sufficient land to meet our development needs way into the future.
We now formulate strategic ‘Concept Plans’ with a long-term perspective of 40 to 50 years. Such plans focus on the strategic broad strokes rather than details, attempting to safeguard land for all the major land uses and key urban infrastructure (especially transport infrastructure) to support growth.
The Concept Plan is reviewed roughly every 10 years to keep pace with changing needs, with additional reviews done by agencies internally where required. So far, four Concept Plans have been prepared in years 1971, 1991, 2001 and 2011.
Phased medium-term plans are also worked out to help decision makers make the necessary trade-offs between competing land uses and to prioritise infrastructure investments to support physical growth.
The Concept Plan is cascaded to a statutory detailed Master Plan with a shorter horizon of about 15 years. The Master Plan maps out detailed land uses and the maximum plot ratio or density allowable for each site, and is reviewed every five years. The legislated Master Plan provides transparency and certainty to the private sector to guide their development and business decisions.
The formulation of the Concept Plan is a highly complex exercise which requires a ‘Whole-of-Government’ effort. Inter-Ministry committees are formed, looking into matters of population, housing, transportation, commerce and industry, central area planning, environment and recreation.
The plans are not static; the assumptions and projections are revisited regularly and the strategies adjusted where necessary. This ‘Whole-of-Government’ approach is critical as urban issues become increasingly complex and difficult trade-offs have to be made.
The formation of the Prime Minister Office’s Strategy Group is also timely, to identify and coordinate national priorities early and to translate them into policy action plans.
This institutionalised process has been a key factor in enabling many of our plans to be realised.
Going forward, what might be some strategies which we could consider in planning for our future? Let us examine some of these.
ADAPTIVE LIFECYLE PLANNING
Singapore is in transition into ‘early middle age’. As our island becomes more built up in the next few decades, how can we secure land for future development? I would like to introduce the idea of ‘adaptive lifecycle planning’— a concept of creating a virtual cycle of land recovery, thus enabling a constant rejuvenation of Singapore for future generations. Let me expand on this concept.
Rejuvenation through recycling land
Similar to many mature cities, as we become built up over time we will be left with more brownfield rather than greenfield sites. This requires us to shift progressively into an ‘urban redevelopment/regeneration’ mode.
For an island city-state limited by our territorial waters, available land for new development will come mainly from ‘recycling’ existing land and properties.
Given this, perhaps our long-term planning horizon should be stretched beyond the Concept Plan’s current 40 to 50-year horizon to even 100 years to capture opportunities for potential redevelopment beyond the economic and useful lifespan of existing buildings and infrastructure.
By doing so, we would be able to secure land for rejuvenation to meet the needs of future generations. Some may say that this proposal runs counter to the need to be flexible in a very uncertain world.
However, I would argue that ‘lifecycle planning’ would stretch our imagination and open us to future possibilities.
If we think sufficiently long-term, the fixed constraints today, even large existing developments like airports, would be sufficiently depreciated in the longer-term to allow for major moves in our plans.
Taking a longer-term view will also enable us to factor in the investments needed for costly infrastructure so that we can build up our fiscal resources over time.
Of course, the plans would have to be reviewed regularly and updated to respond to dynamic changes.
Our system of leasehold land is key to enabling such land rejuvenation to take place.
For example, industrial land which are generally on 30 to 60 year leases can be recovered when their lease ends. The land can then be re-used to meet new needs and support new economic thrusts in the next lease cycle.
We see many successful examples of such urban regeneration in the world. For example, London and Bilbao are examples where port land, which is no longer needed, is redeveloped for new commercial, residential and cultural uses.
Similarly, we are re-locating a large part of our port after some 50 years. PSA announced last year that it would be moving its Tanjong Pagar terminal to Pasir Panjang soon and eventually, to the Tuas mega port.
This new state-of-the-art port is slated to be operational from 2021 and fully ready by 2040. This shift will eventually free up much of the southern waterfront for future residential, commercial, and leisure and recreational opportunities.
In another example, the move of the military airbase at Paya Lebar to Changi in the future will free up 800 hectares for new developments.
These ‘musical chair’ moves are an essential strategy for rejuvenating our physical landscape. But to make changes to spatial patterns, we have to plan well ahead of time. A few large pockets of land need to be safeguarded to initiate these big moves.
Build adaptability into planning
Being adaptable means that we should provide for ‘modularity and flexibility’ in our plans, in view of future uncertainties.
For example, even though we have safeguarded a large tract of land in Tuas for our port, it could be phased to retain strategic flexibility, in case demand for port activities does not pan out as envisaged.
Building flexibility into our plans also requires us to develop plans which can accommodate a larger population. Dr Liu Thai Ker has advocated planning for a projected population of 10 million.
His view has generated debate. No doubt, there will continue to be much discussion on what might be an appropriate population size for Singapore.
This largely depends on whether we can find innovative urban solutions to sustain our good living environment, and on the level of acceptance by our citizenry.
Regardless of public sentiments, it is wise to plan for scenarios with varying population sizes, as it would help planners to anticipate the types of infrastructure that will be needed, the appropriate densities to build on available land, and to work through the many difficult trade-offs in allocating land amongst competing uses.
If the population growth does not materialise, we would have a happy situation of having more land buffer set aside and more choices in the use of land.
Develop ‘no regrets’ infrastructure and pursue land/space creation
When future demand is uncertain, how should we provide hard infrastructure which, once built, cannot be changed? One strategy is to plan for and invest in selected ‘no regrets’ infrastructure upfront, even if it might result in some redundancy and sub-optimisation.
One example is the MRT rail network.
Planning for more rail lines in anticipation of a larger population would enable us to safeguard the land for the rail corridors now before the city gets more built up. In fact, this was how we managed to build many of the existing MRT lines today.
Our long-term planning approach meant that we had safeguarded the land corridors for many of our MRT lines since the 1970s. Sizing upfront a capacity with sufficient buffer for growth is an important consideration because once the railway line and MRT station is built, any attempt to upgrade capacity is extremely costly, if not impossible.
A second example is land creation—where possible, we should build up a land bank because in Singapore’s context, ‘more land is better than less land’.
An illustration of good planning foresight is the reclamation of land at Marina Bay since the 1970s in anticipation of the future growth of the city.
This alleviated growth pressure on the existing city, and enabled us to conserve many of our historic districts. However, the extent to which we can reclaim land is limited by our territorial boundaries as we have to also preserve sea space to support our port functions.
We should therefore explore other means of space creation as well.
JTC has successfully implemented the Jurong subterranean caverns for liquid storage. The government is looking into the development of more underground space.
Opportunities exist in areas like the ground beneath Kent Ridge or the Science Park where the soil formation underneath is suited for such underground construction.
In collaboration with partner agencies, the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is currently developing an Underground Master Plan, which it said will be announced in 2019.
We could also consider decking over large swaths of transport infrastructure, such as highways and MRT depots that take up extensive tracts of land.
There are many successful examples where this has been done. Klyde Warren Park in Dallas was created by decking over highways.
The Millennium Park in Chicago and the new park at Hudson Yards in New York straddles a working railyard.
Co-locating uses can also save land. The East Coast Integrated Depot, a new 36-hectare S$3.2 billion depot will be built to house 220 trains for the Thomson-East Coast Line, East-West line and Downtown line.
Said to be a world’s first, the depot will also house 550 buses. By integrating the depots, the Government expects to save 44 hectares of space, or about 60 football fields. It will be completed by 2024.
These strategies use ‘capital and technology’ to overcome our limitations in land. The challenge is to find the right economic model to justify these expensive investments.
For example, we were able to justify sinking the Marina Coastal Expressway underground because it would free up more prime land with access to the waterfront, and enhance overall land value. Similarly, decking over infrastructure use would create additional space and free up land elsewhere for other uses.
Such projects should be seen as investments in our future.
Build in greater flexibility in regulations and design
Planning regulations convert our land use plans into working rules to steer developments towards specific planning objectives. Being adaptable is about building in more flexibility to our zoning regulations to cater to the changing work patterns and market needs arising from the sharing and the digital economy.
When we planned Marina Bay, we introduced the ‘white site’ zone where we stipulated a minimum floor space for a specific use, such as a hotel, and then left it to the market to determine the remaining types of uses according to demand.
The type of use could also be changed over time to meet evolving needs. More white sites could be considered as we open up newer mixed-use areas.
Recently, URA introduced an innovative zoning approach for the new Punggol Digital District—a district set aside for digital and cyber-security industries.
Zoning rules would be applied at a district level instead of on individual parcels of land, giving developers more flexibility to mix uses. Just as cities need to be adaptive, so should buildings be designed for greater flexibility. Just as cities need to be adaptive, so should buildings be designed for greater flexibility.
Reasonably sized floor plates, wider structural spans and sufficient floor to ceiling heights would allow a building to be converted and repurposed for a variety of uses over time.
For example, Google’s new Mountain View headquarters comprise a series of giant domes under which any number of structures, fit for any purpose can be quickly assembled, making it completely programmable for any use case.
INFRASTRUCTURE AS AN INTEGRATED, RESILIENT AND INTELLIGENT URBAN SYSTEM
Today, based on our Concept Plan’s projections, individual agencies make provision for key infrastructure such as those covering transport, water, energy generation and waste management.
Going forward, there is scope to rethink infrastructure as ‘urban systems’ and not just as specific stand-alone types of infrastructure, so that we can achieve closer integration and greater synergies between them.
As a small island city-state, we should work towards three important principles in our infrastructure provision: a) To favour a circular rather than a linear model; b) To adopt an integrated multi-function rather than a single function system; c) To build resilient and intelligent urban infrastructure.
One of the best examples of a circular system is the way in which the Public Utilities Board (PUB) has successfully closed the ‘water loop’.
Today, Singapore is designed as ‘one giant, rain-water absorbing sponge’.
PUB has developed a whole network of drains, canals, and underground storage tanks to capture rainfall. Through the introduction of the Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, PUB is also capturing all used water and is recycling it into NEWater, most of which is used by industries that require very clean water.
Similarly, we should think of ‘multi-functional’ strategies in say, land reclamation. For instance, in the future reclamation of land along the East Coast and the Southern Waterfront, the reclamation could double up as a ‘dam’; a coastal protection measure that protect the inland low lying areas along the East Coast.
The reclaimed land could also be shaped to create more inland waterbodies where heavy rainfall could be channelled into, to prevent floods and double up as freshwater storage areas.
These waterbodies would create more waterfront conditions which also provide opportunities for more beautiful waterfront housing and recreational areas.
Strengthen waste-energy-water nexus
We should pursue integrated infrastructure solutions that combine energy, waste and water as they have the potential to provide benefits across multiple city systems.
For example, while PUB has successfully recycled used water, the process consumes large amounts of energy. A recently announced PUB-National Environment Agency (NEA) project is a good example of how the waste-energy-water loop can be tapped to address the energy issue.
This is a S$9.5 billion project comprising PUB’s Tuas Water Reclamation Plant (TWRP) co-located with NEA’s Integrated Waste Management Facility (IWMF), which will enable Singapore to reap the benefits of a water-energy-waste nexus while minimising land footprint.
Essentially, electricity generated at IWMF from the incineration of trash will be supplied to TWRP for its operations.
The TWRP will purify used water, transported from the existing Deep Tunnel Sewerage System, into NEWater and industrial-grade water for reuse. At the same time, the de-watered sludge from TWRP will be incinerated at IWMF for electricity production.
Food waste and used water sludge will also be co-digested, through a process called anaerobic digestion, where micro-organisms convert waste into biogas to enhance the overall thermal efficiency and electricity production at IWMF.
Intelligent infrastructure
We should combine engineering and data to enable a more intelligent approach to infrastructure so that we optimise energy generation and distribution, make our buildings smarter and keep traffic flowing. Advances in sensors, controls and software can enable:
a) Increased intelligence and transparency, providing the right information at the right time for informed decisions.
With artificial intelligence we can move beyond normal monitoring of services towards predictive maintenance, where we can anticipate a problem and fix it before the service is affected.
b) Integration: Information can be shared across systems and organisations to eliminate silos and optimise performance.
For example, Smart buildings can take on energy when it is cheap and plentiful, storing it first and then feeding it back to the grid when demand is high, thus optimising the use of energy.
Today, Singapore’s infrastructure ecosystem, whilst efficient, may not be fully optimised.
The above linkages between various infrastructure systems suggest that there may be merit to consider the development of a National Infrastructure Plan to ensure that our long-term plans and vision are supported by timely infrastructure that takes a systems approach.
Such a plan would help to further identify specific opportunities to synergise the various urban systems: food, energy, waste, water, transport and greenery, and to close the material and energy cycles to create a circular ecosystem.
Deliver well managed and liveable density
With a growing population, living density in Singapore will increase from 11,000 persons per square kilometre to 13,700 persons per square kilometre between now and 2030. However, we need not fear densification if it is done well.
Densification takes place in cities because higher densities enable cities to absorb more people.
Dense cities become engines of economic growth because they offer a larger market size for projects, attract talent for greater innovation and provide the support and connectivity needed for businesses to thrive.
From a sustainability point of view, denser and compact cities also use less energy, are more walkable and help to make public transport options, waste disposal and management services more viable and efficient to operate. However, this is not to say that we densify without thought.
Optimal density needs to be ‘appropriate’ and involves deliberate and decisive spatial planning and design strategies that continues to make a city highly liveable. The following are some ways that can help to create liveable density.
Constellation of commercial centres to rebalance the urban pattern
To support economic growth, Singapore has developed two distinct economic hubs over time— our Central Business District (CBD) and the manufacturing hub in the west—which house some 70 per cent of our economic activities.
Since Concept Plan 1991, we have adopted a ‘constellation’ of decentralised alternative affordable spaces for commercial growth outside the city to reduce traffic congestion in the city centre.
As a result, today we have Tampines Regional Centre, which hosts many of the backend functions of banks and new commercial sub-regional hubs like Paya Lebar and Novena, contributing to a better job to home ratio in the various regions.
Nonetheless, there is still high one-way travel demand from across the island towards Central Area and the West Region during peak hours.
To reduce congestion and shorten commute time, URA and LTA are stepping up decentralisation efforts with a newly coined `polycentric’ approach.
With more public housing being built in areas like Woodlands, Yishun, Punggol, and in Jurong, there are opportunities to shift more commercial activities and jobs to newer areas.
For example, to the north, we have the upcoming Woodlands Regional Centre, the North Coast Innovation Corridor which will include the Punggol Digital District and the new Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).
To the west, the new high speed rail terminal at Jurong Lake will catalyse the expansion of the Jurong Lake District Regional Centre into a new major western commercial node.
These commercial nodes will be well-designed, mixed-use environments with amenities and more affordable rents, providing alternative premises for businesses.
The western region will host the new PSA mega port in Tuas, and the Jurong Digital District near Nanyang Technological University (NTU), providing more employment opportunities in these areas.
In turn, more housing will be injected back into the Central Area with new opportunities for development at the southern waterfront, Marina Bay and Marina East. This will improve the job to home ratio, and reduce cross island travel.
The Active Mobility Bill allows the use of bicycles and Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) on public paths, but it is too early to say whether we can get the cyclists, pedestrian and drivers to co-exist harmoniously. TODAY file photo
Rethink urban mobility
Land use planning must be supported by a good transport system. We have all along adopted a ‘transit oriented’ approach by encouraging the use of public transport that serve higher density nodes.
Singapore was one of the first cities to put in place policy measures such as the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) car quota scheme and the electronic road pricing in the 1970s to moderate car growth and to manage traffic congestion.
Nonetheless, roads today still take up about 12 per cent of land—almost as much as the 14 per cent of land used for housing. To keep increasing the car population, which would in turn consume more land for roads, is simply not sustainable.
In fact, Singapore’s private transport mode share is 34 per cent in 2014, which is higher than Seoul (23 per cent; 2013), Tokyo (12 per cent; 2008) and Hong Kong (12 per cent; 2011), where more people use public transport.
LTA has therefore set a target to improve our public transport mode share during peak periods to 75 per cent by 2030.
We must pursue alternative transportation modes beyond the car. In Singapore, there is now a big push towards a ‘car-lite’ society. Last year, LTA announced that it will adopt a zero car growth policy.
The idea is to shift increasingly towards ‘mobility as a service’, rather than having individually owned cars.
LTA is piloting car sharing and AV vehicles to yield greater efficiency and safety so that road space can be reduced. Car parking supply are being tightened, particularly within the city core.
Last year, URA exhibited possible ideas for future neighbourhoods at Bayshore and Holland Plain, and architects have mooted the idea of reducing car parks by 50 per cent in those districts.
A ‘car lite policy’ will need to be supported by alternative affordable and convenient modes of transport. LTA is investing heavily in rail and doubling the rail network from 178 km to 360 km by 2030.
LTA has also added on a larger fleet of some 1,000 buses. Many kilometres of cycling tracks are being developed to encourage more people to cycle.
In 2017, LTA passed the Active Mobility Bill to allow the use of bicycles and Personal Mobility Devices (PMDs) on public paths. We now have bike sharing too. It is still early days to conclude whether cycling will take off in a big way and whether we can get the cyclists, pedestrian and drivers to co-exist harmoniously. In the meantime, the cycling network will continue to be expanded to improve convenience and connectivity.
To further reduce congestion, there is a need to explore more sustainable urban logistics solutions too.
JTC is looking at incorporating a central distribution centre at Jurong Innovation District (JID) where goods are stored and handled, and a dedicated road network for the delivery of goods to companies.
The government is also looking into an island wide federated parcel locker network to ease the last-mile delivery challenges.
There is likely to be increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). For example, Airbus’s Skyways project aims to provide efficient, seamless delivery of small parcels via drones across the National University of Singapore Campus.
Such initiatives require us to consider designing cities that cater to 3D mobility which includes safe pathways and landing for UAVs and regulations to ensure safety.
In fact, NTU’s Air Traffic Management Research Institute (ATMRI) is developing a traffic management system for drones called the Traffic Management of Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
Air traffic lanes are designated by using ‘virtual fences’ to reroute drones around restricted geographical locations, thus enabling hundreds of UAVs to fly efficiently and safely at any one time.
Build a city of greenery and water
Our agencies, such as URA, National Parks Board (NParks), PUB and HDB have done much to achieve a finely balanced urban development, complemented by lush greenery and waterbodies throughout the island.
There are some 360 parks today and more will be built. At a national level, we have safeguarded large swathes of nature reserves right in the heart of the island and national parks such as the Botanic Gardens and Gardens by the Bay within the city centre.
The new Jurong Lake Gardens will be the first national garden within the HDB heartlands and next to the new western region commercial node.
We are constantly creating the ‘illusion of space’ through innovative ‘multiplication’ effects. For example, URA successfully created a large linear hill park simply by connecting Mount Faber and Kent Ridge Park with interesting bridges which straddle over roads.
Our park connector network has enabled greater access to cycling and jogging trails, with links to multiple parks and coastal areas.
The rail corridor will soon become another well-loved space for a quick get away from the hustle and bustle of the city.
Imagine the possibility of linking the rail corridor with surrounding attractions with historic areas and parks, with offshoots to interesting neighbourhoods, food havens, nature and biodiversity areas. It would indeed be a creative way to expand our leisure space multi-fold in this small island.
At the building level, we are replacing the greenery lost to developments on the ground through the creation of new land by way of sky terraces and sky gardens. Water elements are weaved into the urban scape using water sensitive urban design comprising bio swales and rain gardens.
By planting the right plants, we are bringing back greater biodiversity and attracting the return of wild life such as otters, hornbills and other birdlife.
Developing a `People City’ using excellent design
Successful liveable and distinctive cities are ‘people-focused’. They go beyond functionality to build identity, image and a great environmental quality through good design.
We need to develop a pervasive culture of design excellence from macro urban design to the smallest details of a building and city infrastructure.
A well-executed juxtaposition of high and lower blocks can provide both relief and a more interesting and distinctive skyline for the city.
Well-designed high density developments interwoven with landscaped greenery, water bodies and public spaces, conveniently served by facilities can produce a high quality living environment.
Great public spaces encourage community interaction and activities and bring vibrancy to a city. Beyond the design of great public spaces, we should promote effective place-making and programming to encourage greater vibrancy and community interaction.
We have already been successful in generating much activity in areas like Marina Bay and the Civic District. Roping in stakeholders to take ownership of place making activities is essential to sustain such activities.
Good urban design will help to shape a good environment and enable us to plan well for an aging population. We need to embrace universal design, mixed uses and new typologies to enable convenient movement, access to facilities and promote social interaction.
I would also appeal for greater attention to be paid to the quality of design of our public spaces and urban infrastructure.
Increasingly, our urban infrastructure is creeping into our crowded streetscape, and if we are not careful, could mar the visual experience of our city.
Careful attention must be paid to the design of larger urban structures such as the increasing numbers of ventilation buildings and MRT stations and entrances.
There are also miles of overhead ramps, pedestrian bridges, link ways and multiple signages that crop up along a street. We need to bring some order to these as we experience a city largely at the street level.
We can take a leaf out of cities that have lovingly nurtured a design culture that looks at all aspects of public infrastructure.
For example, Bilbao commissioned Norman Foster to build the signature ‘fosteritos’ that are the entrances to all its subway stations. Barcelona has attractive boulevards such as Passeig de St Joan Boulevard, where the scale and design of sidewalks, trees, signages, lamp posts and street furniture are all beautifully coordinated.
Transport can be beautiful if we put some thought into careful design before we build.
As a small integrated city state, Singapore is well poised to harness smart technology and to pilot integrated urban solutions in a big way.
We are in an exciting time where several extensive projects are lined up for development, such as the Jurong commercial nodes and Tuas Mega Port in the west, Punggol Innovation Corridor in the north, the expansion of Changi Airport in the east and the greater southern waterfront development in the south.
With thoughtful people centred planning, strong science and technology and an innovative spirit, Singapore can continue to transform for the better.
Dr Cheong's third IPS-Nathan on Shaping The Future of Heartland Living will take place on April 23.
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