It is a pleasure to volunteer as a photographer for the environmental cleanup event in Ubin island last Saturday, where my teammates picked up litter, such as discarded plastic bottles, in a forest near a mangrove swamp.
On my way to the venue, I was fortunate to see some wildlife that aren’t commonly found in mainland Singapore.
They include the great-billed heron, fiddler crabs and giant mudskippers.
Let’s continue to keep our environment clean, so that the wildlife, whom we co-exist and share space with, will continue to live safely.
On my way to the cleanup venue at Puaka Hill area, I saw some litter such as discarded drinks cans and plastic water bottles. Our heroes and heroines who participated in the environmental cleanup in Pulau Ubin
I came across the above video recently in my Facebook newsfeed. Thoughts went through my mind, and I have long wanted to address the issue of the natural beauty of Pulau Ubin being spoilt by human intervention. Finally, I decided to post my comment in response to the video, as follows:
“Thank you for the video. Pulau Ubin is what Singapore mainland used to be more than a century ago, mainly forested with some self-sufficient farms, few buildings and roads. Many people today are calling for the rustic, natural environment of Ubin to be preserved because capitalism, materialism and consumerism have caused the mainland to lose its soul and character and become disconnected with Nature in the name of material progress.
Littering and improper waste disposal are still a perennial problem, especially along the southern and eastern coasts of Pulau Ubin, where rubbish entangled among the mangrove roots and/or washed ashore the sandy beaches is both an eyesore and a grim reminder of the far-reaching effects of a consumerist and materialistic culture in our urbanised society.
As long as we aren’t dealing with the root of this problem, anything we do to help protect and preserve Ubin will only be like applying band-aid to a deep wound, which may provide temporary relief at best. Unless we drastically change our mindset and ditch the capitalistic, monetary system that breeds inequality and results in unsustainable growth and environmental degradation, Ubin will die a slow death in following the footsteps of the mainland.
History has proven time and again that once prosperous cities such as Rome and Babylon would suffer decline and become no more than relics, and Singapore is no different if we don’t embrace a resource-based system and egalitarianism, as proposed by the Venus Project. It remains to be seen how each of us chooses to do our part for the environment as global citizens and children of the Earth, for every one of us matters and we are all one and interconnected.”
The kayaking event is organised by Kayak Khakis meetup group based in Singapore. We kayaked from Pasir Ris beach to Pulau Ubin and back, and we were fortunate to experience favorable weather as it had been raining the past few days.
Nature and Us 