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NParks is establishing world-class gardens and parks and restoring nature into the urban landscape as we work with the community to transform Singapore into a City in Nature.
As Singapore transforms into a City in Nature, efforts to further extend nature into our urban landscape have intensified. The OneMillionTrees movement, launched in 2020, is a nationwide effort driven by the community with NParks’ support to plant a million more trees across Singapore by 2030.
Partners from the Friends of the Parks communities, schools, nature groups and community groups have championed initiatives surrounding the tree-planting efforts. Despite challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 6,400 people from all walks of life participated in the movement during the year under review.
As of 31 March 2021, close to 107,000 trees have been planted across our nature reserves, gardens, parks and streetscapes. This includes many native plants that were chosen for various characteristics, such as vibrant flowers, attractive foliage, low maintenance, drought-tolerance, and suitability as a food source for native biodiversity. Community nurseries have also been established so that our partners can be involved in the process of nurturing native trees for planting.
Corporates have committed to contribute to this movement through NParks’ registered charity, the Garden City Fund. For example, on Jurong Island, trees are being planted through the charity’s Plant-A-Tree programme to help mitigate the urban heat island effect. This means cooler temperatures with improved air quality and a more beautiful living and conducive work environment for all. As of 31 January 2021, close to 39,000 trees have been planted at these sites.
Learn more about the benefits of trees.
The OneMillionTrees Movement aims to redouble efforts to green our urban infrastructure on an unprecedented scale, to achieve the vision of making Singapore a City in Nature.
Why Plant Trees?
Trees play an important role in enhancing the living environment for all Singaporeans. How so?
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Trees green the city state, reducing the urban heat island effect and air pollution
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Trees store carbon to help mitigate the effects of climate change
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Trees provide food and habitats for wildlife
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Trees make Singapore a more pleasant and sustainable place to live in
In November 2020, NParks opened the 1.76 km Lornie Nature Corridor. It is made up of a Nature Way, park connector and a buffer to the Central Catchment Nature Reserve. The corridor was planted up with many native tree species in a multi-tiered manner. Over time, the trees will grow and form a forested corridor to buffer the nature reserve, restoring nature into the highly urbanised area.
This nature corridor is a site under the newly launched NParks Rewilding Plan that involves introducing more naturalistic landscapes by planting native trees and shrubs as well as some common and naturalised wildflowers in selected areas.
Nature Ways not only strengthen the ecological connectivity between green spaces to sustain a healthy natural ecosystem, they also bring nature closer to residents and make the streets more pleasant for walking or cycling.
In 2020, NParks rolled out 20 km of Nature Ways, bringing the total distance of Nature Ways to 150 km. Other stretches that were implemented include Nature Ways in Keat Hong, Pasir Panjang, West Coast, Bedok and Pasir Ris, with the target to make every road a Nature Way eventually.
NParks is also targeting to build 500 km of park connectors by 2030. As at end March 2021, some 360 km of park connectors have been completed, including the Changi Coastal Park Connector Extension which provides an important link between Changi Airport and East Coast Park. NParks will continue to expand the Park Connector Network to ensure that more communities can access nature easily. With this, all households will be within a 10-minute walk from a park, by 2030.
The old seven-lane Lornie Road has been converted to a dual two-lane road. Part of the old road was reclaimed to create the new Lornie Nature Corridor.
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong participating in a tree planting activity, an important annual tradition that dates back to 1963.
What are Nature Ways?
Nature Ways are multi-tiered plantings with specially selected trees and shrubs to facilitate the movement of fauna between green spaces. The four layers in a Nature Way are:
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Emergent Layer
Trees here provide food for canopy-dwelling insectivorous birds and nesting sites for eagles and other raptors.
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Canopy Layer
These trees, some of which are flowering species, provide shelter and food for insectivorous as well as nectar-loving birds and butterflies.
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Understorey Layer
Trees here produce small berries that are a food source for frugivorous or fruit-loving birds. Some are also host plants for butterflies.
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Shrub Layer
Flowering shrubs here provide nectar for butterflies and birds, are host plants for butterflies and provide a habitat for insects and spiders. Their colourful flowers are a visual treat to pedestrians and road users.
Skyrise greenery enables developers and building owners to implement more greenery within Singapore’s limited space. Greenery not only cools buildings and makes them more comfortable to live, work and play in, it also softens their appearance and strengthens our role as a world leader in vertical greening. In the year in review, 11 buildings were awarded incentives to implement skyrise greenery, and 12 hectares of rooftop greenery and vertical greenery were added, keeping NParks on track to achieve the target of 200 hectares of skyrise greenery by 2030.
Since its inception in 2009, the Skyrise Greenery Incentive Scheme has benefitted 268 buildings and helped contribute to the 132 hectares of skyrise greenery in Singapore. To inspire more building owners to come on board the initiative, NParks published the Skyrise Greenery Showcase e-guide to highlight developments that have benefitted from the scheme.
As part of our national greening efforts, NParks completed landscape works for four MRT stations in 2020, bringing the total number of MRT stations greened to 75. Commuters can also admire the pretty trellis climbers planted along about 14.5 km of covered linkways.
Our streets and park connectors are getting prettier and more colourful. All across our island, you can spot flowering species such as the Trumpet Tree (Tabebuia rosea) with its sakura-like blooms of pink, Bougainvillea (Bougainvillea species and varieties) whose bracts come in colours such as magenta, white and orange, and the Sandpaper Vine (Petrea volubilis), a woody climber with pale blue to violet flowers often planted along sheltered walkways.
The Story of Native Forests
Singapore’s landscape features a rich palette of green cover. Our native vegetation is the tropical rainforest and the most ecologically diverse of this – the primary rainforest – can be found in places such as the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and Central Catchment Nature Reserve.
The primary rainforests are often fringed by mature secondary forests with a rich diversity of native species. Examples of these can be found in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve and the Dairy Farm, Hindhede and Windsor Nature Parks.
There are also younger secondary forests which are dominated by native pioneer species. For example, the Adinandra belukar is a secondary forest found in areas where past agricultural activities have resulted in degraded soil. Hence, they tend to be dominated by species that are able to thrive in such conditions.
Besides these, there are stretches of greenery populated by exotic species which have taken root on land that has been left fallow. These include grasslands and scrublands dominated by weeds such as Guinea Grass (Urochloa maxima) and Mimosa (Mimosa pudica), and young forests dominated by fast-growing non-native species such as Albizia (Falcataria moluccana), Lead Tree (Leucaena leucocephala) and the Snake Tree (Cecropia pachystachya).
The non-native species tend to dominate young forest growth and crowd out native trees. Albizias, for example, can grow up to 4 m a year, unlike the native Kempas (Koompassia malaccensis) which grows about 1 m. They also pose a safety issue because of their short life span, shallow root system and brittle wood structure which makes their branches more prone to snapping.
In prioritising Singapore’s conservation efforts, NParks is cognisant of these different shades of green and continues to be guided by science. Different conservation strategies will be applied in various areas, depending on the size and type of vegetation and ecological connectivity to other green spaces.
Core biodiversity areas are protected as nature reserves, and buffer areas have been established to protect them from abutting developments.
Under the Forest Restoration Action Plan, which is part of Singapore’s Nature Conservation Masterplan, ecological processes and biodiversity in our native rainforests are being restored and enhanced with the help of the community. For example, nitrogen-fixing species are being planted to improve the soil conditions and exotic weeds that compete with our native species are being removed.
Meanwhile, exotic species which prevent native species from taking root will have to be managed, and tracts of exotic-dominated secondary vegetation may have to give way to competing demands for land use.
It is important, therefore, to look at our nature areas as a whole and adopt a strategic, science-based approach that will ensure sustainability in our efforts to protect Singapore’s natural heritage.
Learn more about the story of native trees.
Did you know that tropical rainforests, like those found in Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, play an important role in removing carbon dioxide and can help prevent extreme weather systems like floods and droughts?
Everyone can now participate in growing our City in Nature, thanks to the launch of the Gardening with Edibles initiative in June 2020. 400,000 free packets of leafy and fruited vegetable seeds were distributed to households to kickstart their home gardens.
This initiative encourages Singaporeans to grow edibles at home and bring nature indoors. It also meets a growing interest in the community to use their harvest to cook their favourite dishes and contributes towards food resilience, part of Singapore’s 30 by 30 goal that aims to produce 30% of our nutritional needs locally by 2030. Another 60,000 beginner-friendly seed packets were distributed at the Community Garden Festival in October 2020 to meet this interest.
In addition to rolling out a suite of online engagement and resources such as Facebook Live sessions, videos and masterclass lessons, edibles-growing workshops were conducted for the community.
Launched in 2005, the Community in Bloom (CIB) programme continues to grow to a strong network of more than 1,600 community gardens involving over 40,000 gardening enthusiasts. CIB gardeners’ skills in growing a variety of edibles have also been steadily honed since 2017 as part of the Edible Horticulture Masterplan. Today, many of them actively share their harvests as part of community outreach events. For example, at the biannual Gardeners’ Get-Together event at Choa Chu Kang Park, CIB gardeners had a mass harvest of their edible produce which they donated to nearby social services organisations.
To cater to increasing interest from avid gardeners, more than 500 new allotment garden plots were opened for online application in end 2020. The plots are located in Bedok Reservoir Park, East Coast Park, Lower Seletar Reservoir Park and one-north Park, among others. There are more than 1,700 allotment garden plots in 20 parks. In an effort to enable the very young to enjoy nature, CIB collaborated with My First Skool pre-school centres to offer hands-on garden-designing sessions for educators, so that they can set up community gardens for the children.
Reflecting the wide base of support it enjoys in the community, more than 460 entries were received for the Community Garden Edibles Competition held in March 2021. The competition involved distributing 3,000 seed packets of more challenging edible varieties to interested members of the public. Participants then submitted the produce which they grew from the seeds. Winning entries were selected based on their size and weight.
The Growing with Edibles seed packets contain a plant care sheet in four languages, seeds for one type of leafy vegetable such as Xiao Bai Cai, Cai Xin and Kang Kong, and one type of fruited vegetable such as Tomato, Brinjal and Lady’s Finger.
Second Minister for National Development & Finance Indranee Rajah (right) admiring the plantings at HortPark with a community gardener after the Community Garden Edibles Competition Award ceremony.
NParks shifted its engagement efforts to digital platforms during the COVID-19 pandemic to reach out to the community amidst restrictions on physical events. We launched a refreshed YouTube channel, producing more than 120 new videos, to meet the strong demand for gardening and greenery-related content.
Videos included tutorials on growing edibles, DIY gardening tips, pet-related craft activities as well as virtual tours of our green spaces. We also worked with content creators on various platforms to share our message with a diverse audience, enabling all residents to continue to enjoy the restorative power of nature even while staying at home.
In compliance with safe distancing measures, signature events such as Gardeners’ Day Out and concerts moved online. We also continued to engage the community on topics such as conservation, habitat enhancement, gardening and responsible pet ownership through webinars, DIY videos and Facebook and Instagram Live sessions. Response to the e-NParks Concert Series in the Park: Rockestra® was positive, with some 600 live viewers and over 30,000 views, while the first City in Nature Concert featuring the Singapore Symphony Orchestra saw 1,400 live viewers and about 25,000 views. We also adopted a variety of tools like interactive plays, virtual tours, videos and storybooks for students, to rouse the innate curiosity children have about the plants and animals around them.
The Community Garden Festival took on a new format with online sessions, virtual tours and a marketplace, as well as gardening tutorials and demonstrations. Its series of videos achieved over 215,000 views on Facebook and YouTube while the Facebook Live sessions averaged 1,000 live viewers per session and received over 60,000 views in total.
Other digital highlights included our Pets’ Day Out event that became a two-hour E-Pets’ Day Out featuring shelter animals up for adoption alongside live chats with Animal & Veterinary Service vets and volunteers from Animal Welfare Groups. A one-stop portal was also available for the public to support these groups by donating or purchasing products.
In addition, to celebrate Singapore’s biodiversity, the e-Festival of Biodiversity was held in September 2020. Participants attended webinars and online workshops, viewed exhibitions and downloaded activity sheets about our flora and fauna.
View the first gardening masterclass of the Community Garden Festival 2020.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, events such as the first City in Nature Concert featuring the Singapore Symphony Orchestra still brought people together while staying physically apart.
Themed Gardening with Edibles, the Community Garden Festival took on a virtual format in 2020. Facebook Live sessions on gardening were held over two days, featuring NParks staff, Community in Bloom volunteers and allotment gardeners.
Coming Together While Staying Apart
In the reporting year and since the start of the Circuit Breaker period, NParks has:
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Produced more than 120 videos and tutorials
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Conducted more than 40 webinars
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Live-streamed seven concerts
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Held 13 Facebook and three Instagram Live events, with several Facebook Live sessions receiving more than 1,000 live viewers
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Garnered over 800,000 views on the NParksSG YouTube channel for our various digital efforts
In March 2021, more features were opened to visitors at the Singapore Botanic Gardens’ Gallop Extension. They include two conserved buildings that have been refurbished into the Botanical Art Gallery and the Forest Discovery Centre @ OCBC Arboretum, COMO Adventure Grove, a café, scenic lawns, landscaped areas and naturalised habitats. The new features complement the existing OCBC Arboretum and Mingxin Foundation Rambler’s Ridge that were opened in October 2019.
The Gallop Extension exemplifies the conservation and restoration of Singapore’s natural and built heritage. Visitors of all ages can unwind and play amidst nature, as well as appreciate nature-inspired art and gain a better understanding of Singapore’s ecosystems.
Children can learn about nature through play at the COMO Adventure Grove in the Gallop Extension, where they can swing on a structure that resembles the aerial roots of the Weeping Fig (Ficus benjamina).
The majority of activities related to the annual Jurong Lake Gardens Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations went online in September 2020. Visitors enjoyed musical and dance performances as well as traditional storytelling sessions from the comfort of their homes. This digital festival reached out to more than 40,000 people. In November 2020, the Bazaar In the Garden activity also took on a hybrid format, featuring online talks and activities as well as physical guided tours of the Gardens for small groups.
In addition, views of representatives from the National Youth Council, People’s Association, Taman Jurong Citizens’ Consultative Committee and the skateboarding community were sought for the development of a skatepark at Lakeside Garden. When ready, this facility will provide skateboarding enthusiasts with a space in the west to enjoy their hobby amidst lush greenery.
As part of efforts to promote sustainability, NParks is collaborating with the People’s Association and several Citizens’ Consultative Committees in Jurong to involve residents in activities such as collecting recycled plastic to use as a sustainable material in constructing footpaths in the upcoming Chinese and Japanese Gardens.
President Halimah Yacob attending the A Better Tomorrow Festival of Lights event at Jurong Lake Gardens in December 2020. The lantern display exhibition was organised in support of the President’s Challenge 2020.
HortPark strengthened its reputation as the Gardening Hub this past year, with the opening of two new gardens in October 2020. My Backyard Garden and Valley of Edibles showcase edibles such as Lady’s Fingers and Brinjal and act as resource centres and inspiration for home gardeners on their edibles gardening journey.
In November 2020, a dog run was opened at East Coast Park. At 0.2 hectare, it is the largest such facility in eastern Singapore, and also features a bird perch next to it. These were designed in consultation with the community to further enhance pet-friendly amenities at the park.
As part of efforts to intensify nature in our parks and bring the health and well-being benefits of nature closer to residents, the family-friendly 4.5-hectare Coastal PlayGrove in East Coast Park was opened in March 2021. It boasts Singapore’s tallest outdoor slide at 16 metres, the first pre-school outdoor classroom by the sea, a water playground and a Nature Playgarden. This marks the completion of the rejuvenation of East Coast Park. Visitors can now enjoy enhanced amenities and improved accessibility to even more open spaces and unobstructed vistas of the sea.
The Nature Playgarden at East Coast Park was one of three such facilities completed in the year in review. To date, there are 17 Nature Playgardens islandwide for children to experience a greater connection with nature through play, exploration and learning.
In a parallel effort for more people to experience the benefits of nature, a sixth Therapeutic Garden, located within Punggol Waterway Park, was opened in April 2020. Residents living in north east Singapore can now enjoy this green space designed to bring mental well-being benefits and respite to individuals with conditions such as dementia, stroke, heart and mood disorders, among others. NParks aims to establish 30 Therapeutic Gardens by 2030.
Learn more about therapeutic gardens.
Minister of State for National Development & Communications and Information Tan Kiat How at the new dog run at East Coast Park, part of enhancements to make the area more pet-friendly for visitors.
Designed to engage the senses of pre-schoolers, NParks’ first outdoor classroom by the sea has a chalkboard, is surrounded by edible plant species and is strategically located for a view of the sea.
Visitors to the Therapeutic Garden at Punggol Waterway Park can admire the elevated vista of the waterway and enjoy features that facilitate therapeutic horticulture to help improve mental well-being.