Abstract
Dating well back into the colonial period, Singapore began to make a mark in the botanical, horticultural and wildlife worlds. This came by way of both its natural circumstances, including those that survived the onslaught of plantation and other less than discriminating agricultural practices and in the form of its magnificent Botanic Gardens and other related curatorial activities. Biodiversity is also a hallmark of Singapore’s environment, although it was significantly depleted during the colonial era of land exploitation. In the shift that has occurred towards a ‘city with or in nature’, significant aspects of Singapore’s plant and wildlife attributes have been pushed further into service. This shift also appears to expert opinion to be closer to a truer natural state of existence than earlier garden-like interpretations, even though the appropriation of whole-hearted public support might be more difficult to secure. Depending upon the eye of the beholder, it certainly seems true that butterflies are more beautiful than caterpillars, but, of course, without the latter you will not have the former. More prosaically, the greening of roadway verges, public parks and so on, thrive better under mixed rather than mono-cultural species conditions. Also the scale of vegetation involved can be and often is very mature and large, more in keeping with the primeval tropical antecedent conditions and so-called ‘nature’ of Singapore. For this to be sustained successfully, risks from events like falling branches and uprooted trees must be avoided almost at all costs in Singapore’s current socio-cultural environment.
Chapter PDF
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Rowe, P.G., Hee, L. (2019). Gardens, Parks and Green Reserves. In: A City in Blue and Green. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9597-0_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9597-0_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-9596-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-9597-0
eBook Packages: Earth and Environmental ScienceEarth and Environmental Science (R0)