All quiet on the Changi eastern front
It’s all fine and dandy then
When plans for the Cross Island Line were announced earlier this year, environmentalists — being environmentalists — went up in arms over a track alignment that looks like it will cut through under the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. The Nature Society was quick to register its concerns, and a few months later put out a paper to propose an alternative route that cuts around the reserve, not through it. There was also a protest at Hong Lim Park where an “eco-artist” and her supporters warned of the environmental impact.
And all this before the Land Transport Authority has even decided on the actual alignment, which it said will only be after soil investigations, feasibility studies and consultation with environmental groups. After all, it is just a master plan with completion not due until 2030. Nothing concrete for now.
Perhaps, like the Population White Paper also targeted for 2030, these environmentalists know that once the government decides on something, it will follow through with it. Practical and economic interest typically come before environmental considerations or political appeasement, as we saw with Bukit Brown. Indeed, the Cross Island Line could prove to be our very own John Galt Line, the railway track in the capitalist-porn novel Atlas Shrugged that industrialist heroes Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden forced through in building despite denouncement from wider society.
As September comes around, Singapore will be welcoming the Formula One race to its shores once again. This is an event that has also seen its fair share of detractors. There was a spate of letters to the press warning of the carbon footprint back in 2007, a year before the inaugural hosting. When the contract was renewed last year for a further five years, a couple of letters came out in the papers again voicing disapproval.
It is thus clear that there are people and green groups in Singapore who care enough about the environment to speak out against eco-unfriendly government actions. This is what leaves me puzzled. Since the National Day Rally, the mainstream papers have carried various features with grandiose diagrams of the expansion plans of Changi Airport. The immediate plan, which is pretty much set in stone, is to open up the third runway by around 2020 to handle up to 135 million passengers a year, with further plans to build a fourth after that. Now, why are the environmentalists silent on this?
For the Cross Island Line, it will at least help to cut short travelling time for the benefit of Singaporeans. (The Nature Society said that their alternative plan will only add four minutes to travelling, but this will add up to tens of thousands of man-hours when multiplied by the number of passengers, trips, and years the line will be in service.) For F1, it is limited to just a few days of racing each year. Airport expansion, on the other hand, is not because we are running out of capacity but due to competition from other cities. While I’m not an expert in this area, I would imagine the environmental impact on a third runway to be much higher than the other two cases.
If we look at Heathrow Airport, which also has plans for a third runway, this contrast in public reaction couldn’t have been greater. In fact, London has been debating over it for ten years now due to widespread opposition from environmentalists, politicians and residents living near the airport. There was even an MIT study that warned of a significant increase in early deaths from pollution that will result from a third runway. Similar concerns have also been voiced in Hong Kong and, in response, its Airport Authority is conducting an assessment on the environmental impact.
While personally I am neutral on the issue of Changi, just as I am with the Cross Island Line, I find it strange that there is much publicity on the merits of expanding our airport but an absence of discussion thus far on any possible negative impact. Even most of the complaints online have centred on Project Jewel rather than the new runways. There appears to be general acceptance that this is something we must do as an air-hub to keep up with regional competitors.
Is Changi Airport so much our pride and joy that even the environmentalists accept its expansion without question? Or are they waiting for someone to start the bandwagon rolling before jumping on?
[…] The Void Decker: All quiet on the Changi eastern front – Singapolitics: Uphold morals, but follow the law […]
Simply put: some battles are more important than others.
Environmentalists come in many different forms, and champion different aspects. There are those who worry about extinction and the loss of species, there are those who care about pollution and industries, and there are those who concentrate on carbon emissions and climate change. No one can claim to be an expert in all the different issues, and none of us certainly have the time and resources to look out for everything that goes on in Singapore; unlike say, Greenpeace, or WWF, which are large enough to be able to cover just about everything, local environmental groups don’t have the ability to do so. The more vocal and visible ones, like the Nature Society (Singapore), are primarily involved in conservation of threatened habitats and species.
The ones among us who are concerned about the Cross Island Line are focusing on the biodiversity of the rainforest in the area, and the integrity and ecology of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve as a whole. It may be a tiny forest fragment, but it represents a sizeable portion of our remaining primary rainforest and mature secondary rainforest. In a nutshell, this is either forest that has been standing since before Singapore became a colony, or forest that was once cleared, but has regenerated over decades or centuries and is well on its way towards reverting to primary rainforest.
This forest forms a critical habitat for many species that have since vanished from other parts of Singapore. The Cross Island Line, if it does run beneath the nature reserve, will involve a great deal of disturbance that is likely to cause much ecological disruption. This is something that our forests can ill afford.
Changi Airport’s expansion, on the other hand, will take place on reclaimed land. The vegetation that grows on reclaimed land is a relatively “young” habitat compared to the rainforest in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, and comprises scrubby species that are widespread and common in similar open habitats across Singapore, including beaches and other coastal vegetation, urban parks, vacant plots of land, and so on. From a biodiversity perspective, the species that will be affected by the construction of Terminal 5 are mostly common and not threatened, and are adaptable and opportunistic enough to survive in nearby areas with similar habitat. Many of those in the forests of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve do not have the luxury of such an option.
You did raise an interesting point about the threat of pollution from the increased air traffic. I honestly don’t have the expertise and knowledge to comment about this matter, and pollution monitoring and control in Singapore has been largely the purview of government bodies and researchers, rather than civil society groups.
I cannot presume to speak on behalf of others, but as far as the airport is concerned, I believe that there are others in the local conservation community who are cautious and avoiding commenting on things that they are not experts in. Or maybe there are environmentalists who accept it (whether willingly or grudgingly) as part and parcel of life in Singapore; the simple fact is that there are so many other places and species to worry about that you cannot be up in arms over every development project.
Thanks Ivan.
It did occur to me that the focus of the Nature Society, as their name suggests, could be mainly on conservation of wildlife and rainforest and it will not be fair for me to say that they are keeping silent on Changi. In citing NSS, I was trying to point out that such vocal groups exists and are not afraid of asking questions of the govt, but perhaps I didn’t express it too well. My bad for sounding like I’m lumping all environmentalists together!
In that sense, it is those who criticised F1 for its carbon footprint who should also have issues with the new runways but somehow nobody has said anything.
That’s true; I recall some people writing in to the press to express their concerns about F1, but I don’t think they represented any organisation equivalent to NSS.
A further point:
I’m a little surprised a number of readers (elsewhere where this post is shared) said Changi’s too far away to be a problem. They could well be right, but if the haze could come all the way from Indonesia, I think it will be too quick to assume that any emission won’t reach the housing estates in the east. Maybe the mindset is what you can’t see can’t hurt you!
They see, they want, they take.
Ask? Consult?
Who are you bluffing? This is Singapore. Chewing gum still banned unless you can get doctor’s certificate.