Green study disregards Singapore's circumstances

Clivebenss SG

THE study by the National University of Singapore and the University of Adelaide reported in Friday's article ('Is Singapore the worst environmental offender?') ranked Singapore, with Japan, Denmark, New Zealand and Iceland, among the 20 worst-ranked countries on proportional environmental impact.

The 10 best-ranked countries were Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Swaziland, Antigua and Barbuda, Niger, Grenada, Samoa, Tonga, Djibouti and Tajikistan.

However, the study compares cities like Singapore with large countries such as Australia, Britain and Japan. A more realistic comparison would be with cities like Sydney, London or Tokyo.

It is surprising that many of the findings are not borne out by facts.

For example, Singapore is ranked fourth worst in its water pollution index. It ignores our investing in a comprehensive used-water network to ensure that all used water is collected and treated prior to discharge into the watercourse.

Our treated used water meets even more stringent standards than the European Union's.

The study grossly inflates Singapore's emissions by including emissions from bunker fuels sold to ships and aircraft transiting Singapore.

This deviates from internationally accepted norms and unfairly penalises Singapore, which is a major international maritime and aviation hub. Under the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention for Climate Change, emissions from international bunker sales are excluded because the emissions take place outside of Singapore.

In fact, Singapore reduced its carbon intensity by 40 per cent from 1990 to 2007.

One author (Navjot Sodhi) claimed that Singapore lost 90 per cent of its forests due to rapid development in the last 30 years. This is untrue. Much original forest cover was lost prior to Singapore's independence in 1965. To preserve what remained, we have by law conserved nature reserves and implemented species recovery programmes.

This, together with an islandwide network of parks and streetscape, enabled Singapore's green cover to grow to almost 50 per cent of the island. Despite rapid development, we have retained a diversity of flora and fauna, including more than 2,000 native plant species and 350 bird species. We continue to discover new species and re-discover species previously thought extinct.

We recognise the need for a scientifically credible and robust evaluation tool to measure biodiversity conservation efforts in cities. That is why Singapore is developing a City Biodiversity Index, in partnership with the United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity, as a tool for cities to evaluate their progress in reducing the rate of biodiversity loss.

The index will be a more appropriate index to evaluate biodiversity and good governance in cities.

Mr Philip Ong
Director (Strategic Policy)
Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources

Mr Lim Chee Hwee
Director (Infrastructure)
Ministry of National Development

ditzy SG

What to do? Singapore so small. If the land area was 100square meters, and you removed 20 square meters, seems like a very big deal already.

Researchers get facts based on theoretical values, and calculation only, and disregard all other factors. And even if they did, its just a little note stuck with an asterisk at the bottom of a table.

So if everyone knew how the world works, singapore need not get worked up over things like these.

Clivebenss SG

What to do? Singapore so small. If the land area was 100square meters, and you removed 20 square meters, seems like a very big deal already.

Researchers get facts based on theoretical values, and calculation only, and disregard all other factors. And even if they did, its just a little note stuck with an asterisk at the bottom of a table.

So if everyone knew how the world works, singapore need not get worked up over things like these.

THE study by the National University of Singapore and the University of Adelaide reported in Friday's article ('Is Singapore the worst environmental offender?') ranked Singapore, with Japan, Denmark, New Zealand and Iceland, among the 20 worst-ranked countries on proportional environmental impact.

The study undertook by NUS too...

ditzy SG

The study undertook by NUS too...

It doesn't matter where the researchers are from. Research is based primarily on facts, figures, and calculations. If it was done based on circumstances, it cannot really be considered research, because there isn't really a benchmark you can put results against.

Clivebenss SG

communication lacking among the various government depts.

ditzy SG

I won't really count NUS as a government department, they are like a sole entity by itself. Run like private, but take some cues from govt.

Clivebenss SG

I won't really count NUS as a government department, they are like a sole entity by itself. Run like private, but take some cues from govt.

Still within the premise.

Clivebenss SG

WE WELCOME Wednesday's reply from the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and Ministry of National Development ('Green study disregards Singapore's circumstances') to last Friday's article, 'Is Singapore the worst environmental offender?', which highlighted the recent publication of our paper in PLoS One.

In a telephone interview with The Straits Times reporter, Professor Navjot Sodhi mentioned that Singapore had lost large amounts of forests and species. We do not know how the phrase 'past 30 years' was added to this statement.

Another author, Mr Xingli Giam, had replied in an e-mail to the reporter that 'in Singapore's case, deforestation was almost complete by the end of the 19th century - primary forests were felled for cash crop agriculture'.

There is no doubt that we agree with the ministries that these losses occurred between the late 1800s and early parts of the 1900s, well prior to Singapore's independence.

As for the inclusion of emissions from bunker fuels, we believe that bunker fuel should be accounted for in the environmental impact rankings.

By including the carbon emissions generated by bunker fuels, we are taking into account the environmental trade-off generated by this often-excluded aspect of fuel consumption. However, we recognise that this approach over-estimates the environmental impact to ports and under-estimates the environmental impact to the home country of the ships.

Prof Navjot, in the telephone interview with the reporter, had conceded that the study could be perceived by some as less than fair to Singapore and that more meaningful comparisons of environmental impact could have been made with other major cities such as New York City and Hong Kong.

Nevertheless, we thought it was still appropriate to include Singapore in this country-level study.

We are acutely aware of Singapore's constraints and environmental management initiatives.

There is no doubt that Singapore has done well, particularly in recent years, in terms of good environmental practices.

We sincerely hope that our study will be taken in a positive light and encourage those involved in environmental management to see if more can be done for the environment in the years to come.

We believe that good environmental management is the key to human survival and well-being.

Professor Navjot S. Sodhi
Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science
National University of Singapore

Professor Corey J.A. Bradshaw
The Environment Institute and School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, Australia

Xingli Giam
Graduate Student, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, USA

Clivebenss SG

IN A recent response by government officials to the study that ranks countries for their environmental impact ("Green study disregards Singapore's circumstances"; last Wednesday), the defence given for our environmental record was the increase in green cover and our high diversity of flora and fauna.

However, almost half of this green cover (56 per cent of Singapore's total land area) consists of golf courses, lawns, landscaped parks and streetscapes (27.5 per cent of the land area). Ecologically, these are a far cry from forest cover, exhibiting impoverished biodiversity.

The rest of the green cover is under old-growth forest, which houses most of our native biodiversity, and this makes up only 3 per cent of the land area.

It is also important to note that of the "more than 2,000 native plant species" mentioned by the letter, more than 600 are already extinct in Singapore. Of the remaining native species, close to 1,200 are endangered and restricted to the fragments of old-growth forests remaining in the nature reserves, and are highly vulnerable to unpredictable effects such as climate change.

As for the bird species, about half of the 350 are non-residents, while of the resident species about 20 per cent is conservatively estimated to be extinct. Taken in context, the occasional rediscoveries of supposedly extinct species have a negligible significance, and only highlights our incomplete knowledge.

Therefore, we should face up to the fact that our rapid economic development has come at an environmental price. Only then can we become wiser and pursue economic growth sustainably, and if possible, undo past damage.

We share the hope of the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources and Ministry of National Development that the City Biodiversity Index will be a fairer measure to gauge urban sustainable development. If so, this will be more fruitful than dwelling on the current state of affairs.

Chong Kwek Yan