Nature reserves may draw tourist dollars

THE article, 'Rethink ideas for selling the Singapore experience' (ST, Dec 13), gave me much food for thought.

Experts in the retail, advertising and tourism industries had much to say about the urgent need to reinvent Singapore, to survive against increasing competition.

Two remarks were particularly striking - Mrs Jannie Tay's 'I don't believe we have anything unique', and a tourism chief's comment that one of our weaknesses as a tourist attraction is that everything here is man-made.

We do have some features which are unique and not man-made - our nature areas and reserves.

None of the ideas thrown up struck me as an effective way of reinventing Singapore, as they all involve replicating existing successful projects, such as casinos or theme parks. And despite the horrendous costs of creating these, they can be copied easily by other countries. Instead of always trying to create something unique, why do we not try to conserve what we already have, things truely unique to us and part of our culture and nature.

We have been blessed with beautiful beaches, coral reefs, primary jungle and mangrove swamps with their exotic flora and fauna, but, sadly, most of these have been destroyed to create space for housing and industry.

What we have left is all the more precious; nature is an increasingly prized commodity worldwide as more of it is lost. We may not have much compared to our neighbours, but what we have is extremely accessible - where else can you get to primary forest or mangrove swamps within half an hour of the city centre? And the problem is not one of marketability of these areas, but supply.

You have only to observe the crowded carparks at the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, on weekdays as well as weekends, to realise how popular our nature areas are.

Our policy makers showed great foresight by gazetting two new nature reserves recently. This is a recession-proof investment for Singapore, and I hope those in the commercial and tourism sectors will show the same ability to think out of the box, to cater to an increasingly sophisticated public.

Our unique, authentic and accessible nature areas may well be what determines Singapore's survival.

GEH MIN
President Nature Society (Singapore)