Highlighting the rise of youth-led nature groups: LepakInSG, Earthlink NTU and Singapore Youth Voices for Biodiversity. And the need to push for better engagement on terrestrial developments, raising PUB's community engagement on Long Island and other projects as a good example.
And how the Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan provides a framework so that "Singapore can truly live up to its ethos as a City in Nature, one where forested land is not just land to be developed, but a heritage to be stewarded."
As nature awareness grows, Singapore can rethink its approach to developing green spaces
Ang Qing Straits Times Feb 23, 2026, 07:30 PM
SINGAPORE - Accustomed to the lush expanse of forest along Sungei Serangoon, some Hougang residents were taken aback in late 2025 to find machines carving out a bus depot in the heart of the woodland.
They said they were not aware of the impending development in the area and questioned why an environmental study was not required prior to its clearance.
In response, the authorities said the site was not a sensitive nature area and did not warrant such a study as the environmental impact would be limited. Still, some residents started a campaign to save the plot of land, dubbed Serangoon River forest.
Such outcries have been increasing in frequency. Other instances involved planned clearances in Woodlands and Jurong.
These vegetated plots, located outside protected areas, are to be felled to meet the country’s development needs, from industrial spaces that tap the Johor Bahru-Singapore Rapid Transit System Link to the expansion of Jurong Innovation District.
In tandem, the country is also promoting its vision of a “City in Nature” – which aims to conserve and restore nature in the urban environment. This has struck a discordant note with the public.
Striking a balance between development and conservation is a perennial debate in Singapore, and the authorities have navigated this by commissioning environmental impact studies to blunt the impact of development on the Republic’s flora and fauna.
Agencies also engage with members of the nature community to seek their feedback on upcoming developments. These typically involve nature groups, consultants and scientists from local research institutions.
But there is a rising tide of public concern over the environment from more than just this community, as the Serangoon River forest case has shown.
The city state’s most mature forests, freshwater swamp forest habitats and mangroves account for less than 2 per cent of its territory, according to 2018 data.
Appreciation for the forest in Singapore, however, extends beyond these habitats. Outcry online over plans to develop other areas such as the Dover and Clementi forests shows that any dense patch of trees is valued.
With more beloved wild spaces like Tagore forest and Alexandra forest earmarked for development under the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) Master Plan, such calls for conservation are set to continue.
Meaningful community engagement to steward Singapore’s wild spaces would go a long way towards helping citizens understand if, and why, their beloved green spots might disappear. At the same time, clearer standards on when environmental studies are needed could help people to understand why one green area is deemed more important than another.
Rising eco-literacy
More is already being done to make such decisions more transparent. In 2025, a record 16 environmental studies were made public, the highest since 2020, when the Government said it would publish almost all of such reports online.
Previously, such studies, which usually span hundreds of pages, were available for viewing only in person, by appointment only, and during office hours. These reports describe the environmental impacts predicted for a project and recommend ways to mitigate these effects.
This transparency has birthed a more eco-literate public. Armed with the technical context, concerned citizens have leveraged social media to translate the jargon in these reports into accessible explainers.
Three youth-led nature groups – LepakInSG, Earthlink NTU and Singapore Youth Voices for Biodiversity – recently raised concerns over the planned expansion of Jurong Innovation District near Nanyang Technological University through an infographic.
The development would result in the clearance of up to 52ha of forested land and streams – an area larger than Thomson Nature Park. An environmental impact assessment (EIA) had proposed the retention of about 14.5ha of the natural areas.
But the groups called for greater emphasis on ensuring wide and connected habitats remain for wildlife, as the project cuts into one of four key ecological corridors identified in a 2021 national mapping exercise.
Mr Ho Xiang Tian, co-founder of LepakInSG, noted that the report did not appear to have plans to help retain the existing link that animals use to travel from the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR), via Tengah forest, to the Western Catchment forest.
Wildlife – especially those that depend on the forest – rely on linked green spaces to travel across biodiversity hot spots in search of food and mates, thus ensuring the healthy exchange of genes.
“The pathway from CCNR to the Western Catchment is already greatly affected by the development in Tengah, so (the expansion) makes it even harder for wildlife connectivity to continue from CCNR to Western Catchment,” said Mr Ho.
Moreover, more people are also becoming aware of the benefits that nature provides – from the cooling ability of a humble tree to an appreciation of green spaces as places of rest and relaxation.
A recent national survey of people aged 18 and above found that most Singapore residents acknowledge and appreciate the benefits they receive from nature, with the cooling properties of green spaces emerging as the most valued service.
More than six in 10 of those interviewed viewed the role of nature in supporting biodiversity as very or extremely important, according to the report published in September 2025.
The study, a collaboration between local and foreign research institutions and the National Parks Board, also concluded that Singapore’s unmanaged natural areas – which were superior in reducing air temperatures and harboured rich biodiversity – were the most valuable natural assets.
Meaningful dialogue
So how can we better balance the scales of development and conservation?
First, there needs to be forums for citizens to raise their feedback about the development of forests.
Currently, forested land can be developed without consulting the public, if internal government assessments deem that they are not near sensitive nature areas, as was the case with the bus depot in Serangoon River forest. This creates undesirable surprises for the ordinary citizen unfamiliar with the URA Master Plan.
Even when studies are conducted, the mode of engagement remains at the discretion of the authorities. Typically, this involves consulting a select group from the nature community before releasing the reports on the URA website with a month-long window for feedback. While the current approach affords more time for the public to comprehend and respond to development projects, its meaning can be lost on the untrained reader, as these reports are often highly technical.
To ensure that the public is meaningfully engaged, the Government can ensure that environmental studies are clear and accessible for the layman.
This has been done before. In December 2025, national water agency PUB released a non-technical summary of a report about the impact of a floating solar farm at Lower Seletar Reservoir. It was the only one of the five reports released in December that provided such a summary. This ensures that untrained people can have a clearer grasp of what these reports mean.
The recent consultation for the upcoming Long Island reclamation project – which involved in-person dialogue with diverse stakeholders – also offers a good model for reconciling conflicting interests.
As highlighted by legal academics Joseph Chun and Lye Lin Heng, a participatory process will strengthen the quality of and public support for the eventual outcome, as affected parties see that their perspectives are considered by decision-makers.
Clearer standards
There is also scope for greater clarity over how decisions regarding the fate of Singapore’s shrinking forests are made, given their value in the hearts and minds of citizens.
According to research published by US law professor Yang Tseming in 2018, EIAs were legally mandated in at least 183 jurisdictions, including China, India and Brazil. Singapore was among six states identified as not having such a requirement.
While a framework to determine and mitigate the impact of new developments on the environment was introduced in 2020, it is still largely up to the Government to decide when an impact study is needed.
In 2024, nearly 40 scientists and conservationists published a ground-up conservation proposal named the Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan, which renewed the call for legislation that clearly outlines, among other things, when and how environmental studies are conducted.
Such a framework could have helped clarify why parts of Serangoon River forest needed to be removed.
A clearer framework will also take into consideration the unique ecology of Singapore’s nature spaces. Of the country’s remaining forests, many have sprung up on land zoned for development. Their relative youth, compared with centuries-old rainforests, does not make them less ecologically significant.
Tagore forest in Lentor, a site zoned for housing, is a prime example. It is a significant habitat for the globally critically endangered Raffles’ banded langur.
The Singapore Terrestrial Conservation Plan has urged the authorities to conduct a national review of forested spaces currently zoned for development, and offer clear legal protection for nature areas deemed significant.
By setting clearer legal standards and ensuring the layman has a seat at the table, Singapore can truly live up to its ethos as a City in Nature, one where forested land is not just land to be developed, but a heritage to be stewarded.
