On Nov 8, 2018 “NParks, in collaboration with JTC, installed Singapore’s largest purpose-built reef structures off the waters of Small Sister’s Island. A total of eight structures, including the one that was lowered today, will contribute an additional 1000m² of reef substrate to the Sisters’ Islands Marine Park. In time, (NParks) hope(s) to see the reef structures teeming with corals and marine life!”

The event was officiated by the Speaker of Parliament Mr Tan Chuan-Jin who said, “long-term conservation and management of Singapore’s coastal and marine environment are essential for Singapore’s future.”

We have reclaimed 150 sq. km of land mostly with sand imported from other countries. Not only has the sand snuffed out the corals and marine life that were teeming at our seas and inter-tidal shore in the early sixties, it brought along invasive marine microorganisms which threaten its bio-diversity. This act of atonement is a little late in coming but welcome. At last we are awakened to the need to conserve and manage our coastal ecology.

We should go one step more and trace the sand we import from others back to the source. Often what appears to be an innocent transaction for supply of sand when traced to the origin, unravels the irreversible damage to the environment as well as to the folks who farm or fish in areas where the sand is mined.

While the world is preoccupied with global warming and rising sea levels, it has lost its focus on the environmental damage done by sand mining. It affects the food supply chain especially those in third world country.

According to UNEP “Sand and gravel … account for the largest volume of solid material extracted globally. Formed by erosive processes over thousands of years, they are now being extracted at a rate far greater than their renewal. Furthermore, the volume being extracted is having a major impact on rivers, deltas and coastal and marine ecosystems, results in loss of land through river or coastal erosion, lowering of the water table and decreases in the amount of sediment supply. Despite the colossal quantities of sand and gravel being used, our increasing dependence on them and the significant impact that their extraction has on the environment, this issue has been mostly ignored by policy makers and remains largely unknown by the general public.”

“The United Nations Environment Programme found Singapore to be the largest importer of sand worldwide in 2014.”

We need more land, or at least space, to keep our standards of living even as the population grows to 6.9 million by 2030 as projected by the White Paper. We can free up much land for housing by floating out land intensive industries and rezone areas hitherto zone for industries (shipyards, ports, chemical plants, incinerators,desalination plants, power stations etc.) and for water and hydro carbon storage as well as parks and golf courses.

Super mega floats of several hundred hectares are possible. They are an amalgamation of smaller floats that have been tested and proven. In the US a 906-ha floating port is being proposed as a transhipment port at the Gulf of Mexico where wind and waves are much more severe than in the Straits of Singapore.

The sides and bottom of floating structures offer millions of sq. m of surfaces underwater where corals, barnacles, fish and molluscs can make their habitat with the natural water currents carrying nutrients flowing unperturbed.

Lim Soon Heng

30 Nov 2018