Week 1 Task

1) From the talk by the Nature Society, regarding Singapore sustaining their nature habitats in the process of development, in the Singapore context, we can bring in the problem that is unique to only Singapore and not other developed countries - that is our rather limited land. With a booming population of 5 million people but with only limited land, the government is tasked to maximise their use of the limited land. As a result of a large population and national development, much of our land is used up for buildings. Through the process of building, our nature environment is under risk from the entry of modernisation and thus it is imperative that Singapore should learn to not just develop blindly by clearing forests,swamps etc, but also sustain and protect our nature environment. One controversial topic being hotly debated recently is about the developing of Bukit Brown for building of houses.Some have brought up the issue that it should be conserved for the benefit of future generations for admiration. The Nature Society who are campaigning for such a cause, talked about sustainable development which can be interpreted as leaving enough resources, nature habitats especially, for the later generations. In conclusion, in the Singapore context, sustainable development is to develop cautiously without over-exhausting our limited resources.

One of the foremost concern in Singapore currently is about the Bukit Brown issue where some debates that the land should be used for development and building of houses while some argues that it should be preserved and sustained for the benefit of future generations. Despite the fact that Singapore has limited amount of land, due to our increasing population, it is inevitable that we have to make full use of every plot of land for purposes such as development and housings. In the process, some natural habitats would be needed to be cleared and "sacrificed" to meet our increasing need of houses. Bukit Brown, being a valued and popular natural habitat since long ago, it is indeed a public concern in the weighing between the importance of conserving the beauty of nature and the imporatance of meeting the current need for houses. Hence, we believe it is one of the foremost concerns in Singapore currently.

One of the College efforts in contributing towards sustainable development is the newspaper collection put in place recently. Respective houses, with combined house efforts, were to collect as many newspaper as possible in a limited period of time. The amount of newspaper collected was weighed and the house with the most newspaper collected will emerge as the winner. The newspaper collected can be recycled and used to produce recycled papers for usage. This reduces the cutting down of trees for paper production. Trees are the main characters of a natural habitat. By conserving trees, we are also conserving natural habitats and sustaining it for future generations. As students, we can play our part by participating in the activity and actively sourcing for unwanted newspaper and contribute to the collection of newspaper. With every student playing their part, the school contributes significantly to the sustaining of nature which we are all responsible for.