In between sips of coffee and slurping of noodles, they discuss strategies, past and future, to campaign against some of the Government's plans.

A Housing Board kopitiam in Yishun may seem an unlikely place for social activism. But they are nature enthusiasts who have just spent the morning in the marshy area called Khatib Bongsu, a nature-rich area that is threatened by government plans to build a reservoir.

The Nature Society is no stranger to lobbying for change.

From behind-the-scenes discussions with government agencies to soft-sell marketing by organising nature tours for VIPs, the society has used a whole gamut of lobbying tactics.

When quieter methods do not work, society members lobby for public support to save nature areas and preserve wildlife sanctuaries.

Depending on your point of view, the Nature Society can be described as the most effective lobby group in Singapore, or the most troublesome.

Its model of advocacy raises the question: Is this the way civil society groups should operate if they want to get results?

The question is pertinent now, when the Government wants 'community champions' to step forward and take up recommendations made by the Remaking Singapore Committee.

How should community champions operate? Should community champions and civil society groups try to work for change behind closed doors, or should they aim for a more vocal approach?

OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES?

BUT first, a look at the idea of community champions.

The call for such champions 'arose quite spontaneously during one of the final brainstorming sessions' of the committee, recalls Mr Viswa Sadasivan, a sub-committee member.

The idea was to encourage 'a ground-up, spontaneous network of people' to emerge to take up specific proposals put up by the committee.

However, sceptics like businessman Alex Au consider community champions 'new labels on old wine... which allow the Government to pick and choose whom they wish to bestow the label on, thus legitimising certain causes, and freezing out others'.

Some activists are annoyed at the coining of yet another new label, pointing out that civil society groups have been championing all sorts of causes for decades, and wonder if the call for community champions calls into question past civil society efforts.

Said one activist: 'Aiyah, yet another label? Why can't people just do the work and make a difference?'

Asked how community champions differ from civil society groups, Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, chairman of the committee, says these champions build on existing civil society efforts.

He wants champions to take up specific causes highlighted in the committee report and form networks to push for them. But unlike civil society groups that are registered organisations, champions may choose to end their involvement once certain recommendations are seen through.

He adds: 'It is a less formal, more organic process... The key is to shift the centre of gravity closer to the people.'

POLITICS OF PERSUASION

QUARRELS over definitions aside, the call for community champions throws up the question of just how civil groups should champion causes in the first place.

Mr Sadasivan believes that smart activists must be 'politically savvy' and present ideas in a way acceptable to those in authority, so that they find it easier to say 'yes' to these ideas.

'In negotiation, this is affectionately called a 'yesable proposition'. It would be naive to expect the incumbent to easily give in to an idea that challenges his own policy position, especially one that threatens his comfort zone.'

He adds: 'In Asian societies, the issue of losing face - especially in public - is something we need to factor into the process of persuasion.'

Mr Raymond Huang, who runs the youth volunteer group Heartware Network, says: 'More space is given when the authorities trust you and know your agenda.'

In consensus-driven Singapore, government agencies are still uncomfortable with groups that use the media to lobby public opinion or bring disputes into the open unnecessarily.

The chief executive officer of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, Mr Tan Yong Soon, says: 'Communication between interests groups and Government is best done privately, in small groups and not through the media which runs into the risk of playing to the gallery.'

Nature Society leaders say they go public only as a last resort, when consultations have not worked, and when nature areas are at risk.

These days, they do not have such public battles with government agencies as in the 1990s - not that they are cowed, but because government agencies have been more open and now consult them more frequently on environmental matters.

The National Parks Board regularly involves the society when planning nature events, and gets help from it and other groups to compile biodiversity data. Society members are also active volunteers guiding tours at the Sungei Buloh bird sanctuary and Chek Jawa mud-flats.

INSIDERS VERSUS OUTSIDERS

HOWEVER, the preference for closed-door rather than public consultations comes at a cost. While such forums allow for more free-ranging discussions, they also risk shutting out many groups.

Said Nature Society president Geh Min: 'If you are kept out of the door, you can't be faulted for shouting through the window or banging on the door.'

Mr Au, whose application to register gay activist group People Like Us was turned down in 1997, is keenly aware of being an 'outsider'. He said: 'The out-of-bounds markers, which excluded us from registration, also excluded us from the remaking process. Which tells you that the hype notwithstanding about breaching OB markers, it's still a job done by insiders for insiders.'

He is suspicious of closed-door discussions as they signal that only some people are wanted to contribute to policy debate. Also, 'the opacity of the process can easily be corrupted to serve the interests of a few over that of the many', he fears.

Still, even those who would be considered 'insiders', like Heartware Network's Mr Huang, sometimes feel frustrated by bureaucracy in their attempts to champion issues. Asked what impeded his group's efforts most, he says: 'It will help if some middle-management civil servants are not too 'risk-adverse' and overprotect the establishment... from what I wonder?

'In other words, learn to take entrepreneurial risks and put the default on 'yes' instead of 'no'.'

Mr Sadasivan, too, concurs that the Government has to send strong signals that it encourages activism. It has to 'allay fears of repercussions if ideas are deemed mischievous in intent, content or even tone'.

UNWRITTEN RULES STILL APPLY

SUCH fears of repercussions may not be unfounded. Professor Wee Yeow Chin, former president of the Nature Society, recalls getting a 'courtesy call from the ISD' or Internal Security Department, when the society was campaigning to quash a government proposal to build a golf course at the Lower Peirce Reservoir nature reserve in the early 1990s.

'They were very nice and polite. But through the subtleness of their visit, you could gauge the pressure the Government was putting on us,' he says.

Like others, he notes that these days, government agencies are more open. Still, unwritten rules continue to apply.

Mr Au observes that groups that are most effective in Singapore are 'civic groups, catering to the needy or homeless animals, or business federations, that don't interrogate the Government's goals'.

Those who want to challenge political rules continue to be told to leave such issues to the ballot box and to politicians. An example is the fact that issues like electoral reform and the impact of defamation laws on political debate are relegated to an 'annex' in the Remaking Singapore Committee's report, as 'proposals without consensus'.

Mr James Gomez, formerly of Think Centre who is now with the Workers' Party, considers the idea of non-partisanship of civil groups as outmoded.

Instead, civil society groups should 'embrace the idea of multi-partisanship so that they can lobby the relevant political parties for their special issues of concern as and when it's required'.

Dr Balakrishnan has a different view. 'Political discussions are useful. However, I would add that ultimately, political questions are best resolved at the ballot box.'

Although some issues may be considered out-of-bounds for community champions, the truth is that there is no shortage of worthy issues to champion that are completely within the boundaries.

Mr Huang, who marries idealism with a strong dose of realism, says: 'There's so much work out there that can be done by people with a passion - only if they learn to be more collaborative, accept one another's little differences and not take a confrontational approach in dealing with the state.'