Nature Contained: Environmental Histories of Singapore

by Timothy P Barnard (Editor)

How has Singapore's environment - and location in a zone of extraordinary biodiversity - influenced the economic, political, social and intellectual history of the island since the early 19th century? What are the antecedents to Singapore's image of itself as a City in a Garden? Grounding the story of Singapore within an understanding of its environment opens the way to an account of the past that is more than a story of trade, immigration and nation building.

Each of the chapters in this volume - focusing on topics ranging from tigers and plantations to trade in exotic animals and the greening of the city, and written by botanists, historians, anthropologists, and naturalists - examines how humans have interacted with and understood the natural environment on a small island in Southeast Asia over the past 200 years, and conversely how this environment has influenced humans. Between the chapters are traveler's accounts and primary documents that provide eyewitness descriptions of the events examined in the text. In this regard, Nature Contained: Environmental Histories of Singapore provides new insights into the Singaporean past, and reflects much of the diversity, and dynamism, of environmental history globally.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment

328 pages, Paperback

First published April 29, 2014

Reviews

[Kendrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nature Contained is an academic research monograph looking at the environmental history of Singapore, edited by Timothy Barnard, Associate Professor of History at the National University of Singapore. The nine chapters provide a rigorous (though at times dry) introduction to Singapore’s environment through the centuries. Published in 2012, its list of contributors are established academics, archivists, and even a director at the Singapore Botanic Gardens. It is a strong contrast to the contributors of Eating Chilli Crab in the Anthropocene: Environmental Perspectives on Life in Singapore, a more recent work from students at the Yale-NUS program. Where the topics in Eating Chilli Crab are more interesting and varied – covering the history of the nomads on Pulau Semakau or the role of eco-horror in Malayan films – I always had the sense that Eating Chilli Crab was a folio of papers drawing on the same module reading list. Nature Contained has the benefit of more experienced contributors, and their writing is less repetitive and in-depth in its citations.

Roughly ordered to proceed from pre-colonial to the present day, Barnard builds a cohesive view of Singapore’s natural landscape and how it evolved over time. From the boom days of pepper and gambier plantations, the dominance of family-owned farms, its subsequent dismantling, to the now revitalized push for self-subsistence, Barnard lays out in clean prose the ways in which nature was first controlled and domesticated for agriculture, then subsequently obscured by nationalistic pushes for economic modernization. It is surprisingly informative and in fact an act of memory. As a child, I used to collect angsana seeds at the park. Apparently, most angsana trees in Singapore were replaced by rain trees at the turn of the 21st century, due to the risk that maturing angsana trees would wilt and their brittle branches would break and injure bystanders. It’s incredible to be reminded of this through an academic text.

Personally, the second half of this book is more interesting than the first. Here, history teacher Cynthia Chou has a chapter on the role of farming in Singapore and how it was sidelined by national development efforts. Hot on her writing is Goh Hong Yi’s chapter on the Malayan Nature Society (present day Singapore Nature Society), and how it advocated for Singapore to become a signatory on the CITES international treaty that regulates global wildlife trade. In both chapters, Chou and Goh touch on the role of big government and how the strongman-style approach to governance led to the state of Singapore today – where citizens live mainly in public housing flats and have limited access or knowledge of nature. Goh’s chapter portrays the government in a critical light and highlights how Singapore’s refusal to listen to the Malayan Nature Society led to economic disruption when the U.S. later imposed a trade ban on our wildlife. Goh’s careful compiling not only of the economic disruption this trade ban caused, but also the figures on illegal wildlife exports that necessitated such a ban in the first place (including rhinoceros horns, pangolin skins, tiger pelts, amongst others) was deeply informative.

While not all of the chapters here are useful for the general reader, I found this book enjoyable and enriching. The writing is pitched for academics, but an advanced undergraduate would be able to find use in this text. I would welcome a re-edition that combines this with younger scholars’ works – perhaps from the aforementioned Eating Chilli Crab anthology.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays on the history of various subjects relating to the natural environment of Singapore. Some of the topics are interesting, like how the island came to become a hotspot for man-eating tigers in its earliest days since British colonization, or how farming was so widespread that it surprisingly did not have to import much food from elsewhere up till as recently as the 1980s! Other drier topics include the history of the Botanical Gardens, Alfred Russell Wallace's years spent using the country as a base for his wanderings in the surrounding archipelago, the brief but failed attempt by the colonial government at controlling trade in wildlife, and the episode of how Singapore was coerced into signing CITES by the United States after flatly rejecting pleas from local environmental activists.

The overwhelming impression is that of how the natural environment as manifested in the original primary rainforests and its wildlife had always taken a backseat to more pressing economic concerns. Indeed, from the sad chronicle of how the collection in the natural history museum was shunted from one basement storage shed to another, the aforementioned passive stance of the authorities with regard to wildlife trade, to the rapid closure of very productive market gardens and pig farms in favor of more economic industrial and housing developments, makes the use of the word 'contained' in the book's title rather lenient. I would've chosen 'Nature Subjugated', 'displaced' or 'eradicated' as a more apt description of the country's history as far as wild nature is concerned. In the final chapter about the state's drive to green the island by planting non-native trees, the lead author falls short of being really critical of the direction the government has taken in making nature a man-made product and equating planted trees with 'nature'. The culmination of it all he rightly points out, is the monstrosity that is Gardens by the Bay, basking in the glory of its artifice and proud to be a showcase of how nature can be built from scratch.

[Yong Feng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 2014, Nature Contained is a collection of essays on Singapore’s environmental history. Each chapter is prefaced with a source, such as excerpts from John Crawfurd’s description of Singapore in 1856 to government reports on agricultural production and the wildlife trade. I thought this was a good way to provide a first-hand perspective to how environmental issues were treated at that time. The topics range widely, and some that I enjoyed were:

- Singapore’s Changing Landscape since c.1800 by Tony O’Dempsey: Gives a good overview on how the natural landscape has changed over the years. In light of today’s conversation on deforestation, it was interesting to learn that within 50 years of British rule, almost 90 percent of forest cover had been wiped out, mostly due to Teochew gambier and pepper plantations. In response, the British established forests reserves that made up 8% of the island, but these were gradually released too, leaving the few that remain today.

- Agriculture and the end of farming in Singapore by Cynthia Chou: The government’s current target to produce 30% of our nutritional needs domestically by 2030 is a reversal of earlier decisions made to phase out farms due to the economic modernisation programme then, detailed in this chapter. However, the vision to grow agrotechnology parks then never really took off, even after efforts to shed the old image of the farmer with new technological terms. The questions of whether traditional agricultural methods can coexist with these technological goals still remain today.

- The Nature Society, Endangered Species, and Conservation in Singapore by Goh Hong Yi: Details the history of the Nature Society, one of the first few civil society organisations in Singapore, and its first big fight with the government in 1981 asking it to sign CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora). The strong rebuttal from the government caused the Nature Society to back down and changed how such organisations voiced disagreements with government policy. Eventually Singapore joined CITES, but only after the US forced its hand by banning wildlife imports.

- A City in a Garden by Timothy Barnard and Corinne Heng: While the chapter by O’Dempsey was on the de-greening of Singapore by early settlers, this chapter covers its re-greening under the direction of then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, a programme that the authors highlight was also economic in nature, and one whether the idea of nature is one that is highly manipulable in service of the state.

Overall, Nature Contained is a good introduction to Singapore’s environmental history, as well as a valuable companion to the more recent anthology by Matthew Schneider-Mayerson, to show the roots of early environmentalists as well as how this history has shaped the evolving discourse today.

[XingYue · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really enjoyed learning about the history of Singapore’s natural environment, botanical gardens and especially intrigued by last two chapters on Singapore’s attitude towards nature conservation which was discussed in terms of wildlife trade and city greening policies.

The last chapter gave me much to ponder over, I am intrigued by the idea that the task of reconstructing nature in Singapore is also an exercise in constructing our national identity and public image.
I wonder how much of this have influenced the development of contemporary neo-tropical architecture styles in the country.

(I’ve read only four of the nine chapters in this book so I can’t give a fair rating, but I really liked what I’ve read.)