What is our relationship with nature (Part IV)

In the last couple of months, I’ve been exploring the spectrum of land regeneration, whether in urban spaces like Singapore or promoting regenerative agriculture in farmland, diversifying monoculture plantations, restoring degraded land, and/or protecting existing primary forests. The latter is the reason why I came back to Southeast Asia.

Having lived in Singapore for nearly two years now, I’ve begun getting to know its forest too — particularly the secondary forests which grew from fruit orchards and kampungs in the 70s to now home of various wildlife species. Since visiting Dover Forest in November (more on this later), a group of us recently visited Tengah Forest, which previously at 700 ha, was “one of the largest contiguous pieces of green area” left in Singapore, serving as an important ecological corridor between the Western water catchment and Central catchment nature reserve.

Slated for housing development, most of Tengah Forest will be gone, ironically to build a “Forest City”. When we visited in June 2023, a third of the forest is already cut down. We stood at the top floor of an HDB opposite Tengah Forest, looking at the canopy of cranes, the buildings being erected, some as tall as the last remaining trees.

According to a recent research and article, Singapore is set to convert an estimated 7,331 hectares of secondary forest, mainly to make way for public housing over the next 10 to 15 years. This is about 1.2 times larger than all of Singapore’s parks and nature reserves combined.

We felt like we were standing at a crossroad of past, present, and future. Soon, Tengah Forest will be just like where we were standing. Huge concrete buildings that will become homes to many but its past completely erased. Every land once was home to many others too. Yet, there is no time and space to grieve what once was and the sacrifices made for us to have our homes.

As we walked past the construction site to the remaining part of Tengah Forest, we can’t walk past its looming fate. Coincidentally, we chanced upon a bird of prey perched high atop a tree. Where will you go when there is no forest left?

Without this connection to the land, where will we be even if we are home?

On the way home, I passed by Dover Forest. What once was…

It is not easy to hold these feelings of grieve and lost. Many questions came up, the biggest being is there no other way? There are suggestions but will they be sufficiently considered? What we hope is even if the forest is no longer there, can we reciprocate and also create intentional spaces that commemorate and honor Mother Nature’s sacrifices and those who gave way so that we can be there. It can be in the form of a community garden, agroforestry, a miyawaki forest, etc., it doesn’t matter. What matters is we sow the seeds once more so that the generations to come know what once was there..