Singapore’s plans to clear forest for homes lead to rare public protests

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Singapore – For at least three decades, Joanne Teoh, 68, has woken to views of a “pure green canopy” from her flat overlooking Maju Forest in Singapore’s Sunset Way estate.

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.

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Earlier this year, Teoh, who has been documenting the forest’s flora and fauna since 2021, glimpsed Himalayan vultures for the first time, causing a stir among Singapore’s birding community.

Teoh now fears that this habitat will soon be lost forever due to the government’s plans to turn much of the forest into a residential area.

“Even if you build homes on part of this forest, as my sons tell me, we don’t want to live beside the graveyard of a desiccated ecosystem,” Teoh told Al Jazeera.

Last month, Singapore’s Housing and Development Board announced plans to clear roughly 15 of Maju Forest’s 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.

The proposals have stirred unusually vocal opposition among the public in a country where planning decisions are typically top-down and rarely contested openly.

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.

Public petitions calling for the cancellation or revision of the projects have attracted more than 60,000 signatures.

The fate of the developments has become an unlikely focus of reflection in the period around Singapore’s National Day, which falls on August 9.

“Maju” means progress in Malay, the mother tongue of the city-state’s largest ethnic minority, and Singapore turned 61 this month.

The debate has led to a rare bout of soul-searching over what kind of progress Singapore, one of the world’s wealthiest countries, wants to see, and a wider conversation about land use and public involvement in planning.

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.

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 – reclamation likely to depend on imported sand, long a contentious trade in Southeast Asia.

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.

Rachel Tan, an organiser with independent advocacy group SG Climate Rally (SGCR), said she has been struck by the “sustained attention and care from the public” over the plans, from residents running town halls to environmental groups leading heritage walks through the forests.

Earlier this month, more than 2,000 people gathered at Speakers’ Corner, the sole venue in Singapore where citizens can legally assemble and speak publicly without a permit, for a rally opposing the development projects.

Tan, whose group organised the event, said Singaporeans are becoming increasingly aware that the environment affects everyone’s wellbeing and that there is a need to preserve green spaces for future generations.

“We 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,” she told Al Jazeera.

Official environmental impact assessments have found that Gillman Forest supports 178 animal species, and Maju Forest supports 113 – 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.

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 – 1.2 times the size of all its existing parks and nature reserves combined.

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 “dismissive and tone-deaf way” officials handled the issue convinced her to “defend the neighbourhood I love”.

“They can’t fight for themselves, so I figured I should do something,” Victoria, who asked to be identified only by her first name, told Al Jazeera, referring to the forest’s birds and wildlife.

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.

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 — a lineage invoked today in the government’s slogan “City in Nature”.

Singapore has also pledged, alongside more than 130 other countries, to halt deforestation by 2030 under the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use.

In parliament earlier this month, Minister of State for National Development Alvin Tan defended the government’s plans, quoting figures showing that public housing launches are oversubscribed more than four times over.

“Our choices are narrower than those faced by larger countries. We thus have to make the best use of our limited land,” said Tan.

Despite having one of the world’s lowest birth rates, Singapore’s population hit a record 6.11 million people last year, the result of a sharp rise in foreign workers.

While unaffordable rents are a major political issue in many countries, Singapore has a home ownership rate of about 90 percent, among the world’s highest, largely through subsidised public flats.

While the government has stressed the necessity of the plans, it has moved to assuage, at least in part, residents’ concerns.

Days before the Speakers’ 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.

“We 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,” Tan said.

Many activists reject the framing that housing and nature are in opposition, arguing that the government’s characterisation of inevitable trade-offs is misleading. Whether the government’s 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 “the consequences of progress” for the forest on a dedicated Instagram account.

Teoh used to play punk rock music in the mornings to get her day started, but now she keeps her stereo switched off.

“I can’t waste the moments with the birds, so I listen to their symphony instead,” Teoh said.

“You only grieve when you have loved deeply,” she added.

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