Singapore \u2013<\/strong> For at least three decades, Joanne Teoh, 68, has woken to views of a \u201cpure green canopy\u201d from her flat overlooking Maju Forest in Singapore\u2019s Sunset Way estate.<\/p>\n Teoh has watched her mother grow old and her sons grow up in its shade, alongside long-tailed macaques, ambling monitor lizards and critically endangered straw-headed bulbul.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n Earlier this year, Teoh, who has been documenting the forest\u2019s flora and fauna since 2021, glimpsed Himalayan vultures for the first time, causing a stir among Singapore\u2019s birding community.<\/p>\n Teoh now fears that this habitat will soon be lost forever due to the government\u2019s plans to turn much of the forest into a residential area.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if you build homes on part of this forest, as my sons tell me, we don\u2019t want to live beside the graveyard of a decimated ecosystem,\u201d Teoh told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Last month, Singapore\u2019s Housing and Development Board announced plans to clear roughly 15 of Maju Forest\u2019s 23 hectares (37 of 56 acres) to build homes at Sunset Way, as well as at least 10 hectares (25 acres) of Gillman Forest, located about 6km to the south.<\/p>\n The proposals have stirred unusually vocal opposition among the public in a country where planning decisions are typically top-down and rarely contested openly.<\/p>\n Teoh and her neighbours are among many residents spurred into action, strategising online and over coffee about how best to advocate for stronger environmental safeguards and greater transparency.<\/p>\n Public petitions calling for the cancellation or revision of the projects have attracted more than 60,000 signatures.<\/p>\n The fate of the developments has become an unlikely focus of reflection in the period around Singapore\u2019s National Day, which falls on August 9.<\/p>\n \u201cMaju\u201d means progress in Malay, the mother tongue of the city-state\u2019s largest ethnic minority, and Singapore turned 61 this month.<\/p>\n The debate has led to a rare bout of soul-searching over what kind of progress Singapore, one of the world\u2019s wealthiest countries, wants to see, and a wider conversation about land use and public involvement in planning.<\/p>\n Tensions between development and conservation have surfaced before, most notably when public pushback over the planned rezoning of Dover Forest, a 33-hectare patch in the west of the city, led the government to retain a large portion of the development as a nature park.<\/p>\n A new outpouring of concern followed on August 23, when Prime Minister Lawrence Wong used the National Day Rally to unveil plans to merge several southern islands into a larger landmass for industry, power infrastructure and defence in the coming decades \u2013 reclamation likely to depend on imported sand, long a contentious trade in Southeast Asia.<\/p>\n Conservation groups have raised concerns about the impact the reclamation will have on reefs, marine life and remaining traces of the history of the sea-dwelling Orang Laut ethnic minority.<\/p>\n Rachel Tan, an organiser with independent advocacy group SG Climate Rally (SGCR), said she has been struck by the \u201csustained attention and care from the public\u201d over the plans, from residents running town halls to environmental groups leading heritage walks through the forests.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, more than 2,000 people gathered at Speakers\u2019 Corner, the sole venue in Singapore where citizens can legally assemble and speak publicly without a permit, for a rally opposing the development projects.<\/p>\n Tan, whose group organised the event, said Singaporeans are becoming increasingly aware that the environment affects everyone\u2019s wellbeing and that there is a need to preserve green spaces for future generations.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are slowly maturing as a society in general, in terms of our civic capital, our political knowledge, and our courage in voicing these political opinions,\u201d she told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n Official environmental impact assessments have found that Gillman Forest supports 178 animal species, and Maju Forest supports 113 \u2013 among them the critically endangered straw-headed bulbul, a bird numbering just 600 to 1,700 worldwide, a third of them in Singapore, and the Sunda pangolin.<\/p>\n A 2023 study in the journal Sustainability estimated Singapore is on track to clear 7,331 hectares (18,115 acres) of forest for new development \u2013 1.2 times the size of all its existing parks and nature reserves combined.<\/p>\n Victoria, whose move to a housing estate near Gillman Forest was partly motivated by her love of nature, said she had never followed parliamentary debates before, but the \u201cdismissive and tone-deaf way\u201d officials handled the issue convinced her to \u201cdefend the neighbourhood I love\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can\u2019t fight for themselves, so I figured I should do something,\u201d Victoria, who asked to be identified only by her first name, told Al Jazeera, referring to the forest\u2019s birds and wildlife.<\/p>\n Victoria, 30, started a Telegram group, now nearing 800 members, where those with relevant expertise help others navigate dense environmental assessments and draft feedback for the authorities.<\/p>\n Singapore has branded itself a garden city since 1967, when founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew began a decades-long tradition of political leaders planting trees \u2014 a lineage invoked today in the government\u2019s slogan \u201cCity in Nature\u201d.<\/p>\n Singapore has also pledged, alongside more than 130 other countries, to halt deforestation by 2030 under the Glasgow Leaders\u2019 Declaration on Forests and Land Use.<\/p>\n In parliament earlier this month, Minister of State for National Development Alvin Tan defended the government\u2019s plans, quoting figures showing that public housing launches are oversubscribed more than four times over.<\/p>\n \u201cOur choices are narrower than those faced by larger countries. We thus have to make the best use of our limited land,\u201d said Tan.<\/p>\n Despite having one of the world\u2019s lowest birth rates, Singapore\u2019s population hit a record 6.11 million people last year, the result of a sharp rise in foreign workers.<\/p>\n While unaffordable rents are a major political issue in many countries, Singapore has a home ownership rate of about 90 percent, among the world\u2019s highest, largely through subsidised public flats.<\/p>\n While the government has stressed the necessity of the plans, it has moved to assuage, at least in part, residents\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n Days before the Speakers\u2019 Corner rally, Tan, the development minister, announced that the government would retain more green space than included in the original plans, which called for the preservation of 40 percent of the Gillman Barracks forest and 35 percent in Maju Forest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will work out exactly how much more, but we will have to accept that this means we can build fewer homes on both sites for fellow Singaporeans,\u201d Tan said.<\/p>\n Many activists reject the framing that housing and nature are in opposition, arguing that the government\u2019s characterisation of inevitable trade-offs is misleading. Whether the government\u2019s concessions will be enough to substantially lessen opposition to the projects remains to be seen. Teoh, the resident of Sunset Way, recently started documenting what she calls \u201cthe consequences of progress\u201d for the forest on a dedicated Instagram account.<\/p>\n Teoh used to play punk rock music in the mornings to get her day started, but now she keeps her stereo switched off.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t waste the moments with the birds, so I listen to their symphony instead,\u201d Teoh said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou only grieve when you have loved deeply,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Singapore \u2013 For at least three decades, Joanne Teoh, 68, has woken to views of a \u201cpure green canopy\u201d from her flat overlooking Maju Forest…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":80268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/80268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
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