Climate Conversations Podcast: Why are extinct species coming back in Singapore?

In a country where urbanisation has uprooted native species that used to call our skies, lands and waterways home, some creatures have beaten the odds of extinction … at least for now.

Liling Tan speaks to Yeo Suay Hwee and Tan Gim Cheong from the Nature Society about the species that are coming back, and the ones that are lost forever. 

Jump to these key moments:

• 1:25 Success Stories of the Raffles' banded langur and freshwater crabs
• 4:13 Loss of the red giant flying squirrel and white-bellied woodpecker
• 6:39 How conservation works in keeping endemic species alive
• 9:10 Striking a balance between development and natural habitats
   

Here's an excerpt of the conversation:

Liling Tan:
 
A lot of these natural habitats are being replaced by buildings, factories, offices, schools, transport networks, the MRT system. That is very important. But how do we strike the balance?
 
Tan Gim Cheong:

There are areas that are reclaimed which are left there to settle before development. So during that period of time, which is usually actually more than 10 years, there's sufficient time for scrubland to develop and sometimes maybe even woodland. Sometimes, there is ponding and this attracts water birds like ducks. What we can do to ameliorate the development and the clearing of habitats is to allow these areas to continue to be wild as long as they are not needed, so that wildlife has some space to go to.

Liling:

So we're relocating them?
 
Gim Cheong:

It's like we've developed a few places and other places we leave fallow. So those that we leave fallow, we try to leave them as it is so that wildlife can move in, have a place to stay, at least temporarily. That's why we sometimes convince the developer or the government when they are setting out a town to incorporate this nature area into their town park, in that sense to preserve it.

Liling:

Are developers open to this? I mean, do you get push back more now or less now than before?

Yeo Suay Hwee:

No, this got to be in the planning stage … you have to convince them that it is good to be incorporated into the development.