“Ecosystems, species, wild populations, local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are shrinking, deteriorating or vanishing. The essential, interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller and increasingly frayed. This loss is a direct result of human activity and constitutes a direct threat to human well-being in all regions of the world.”
Prof. Josef Settele, UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) GLOBAL ASSESSMENT REPORT ON BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES, 2019
what is ‘protect our last wilderness’?
‘Protect Our Last Wilderness’ is a conservation campaign by Cicada Tree Eco-Place. It highlights the pressing need to prevent the disappearance of the island’s last remaining wilderness areas, which are an important buffer against the effects of climate change. Protecting them is our moral responsibility.
The event will also mark the launch of the online ‘700natives’ Top 10 Red Lists, which seek to compile 700 native species which are or have been recorded in Singapore, including those species that have gone locally extinct or are now endangered. The online compilation, to be released in stages, begins with ‘Top 10 Extinct Rainforest Birds of Singapore’ and ‘Top 10 Extinct Rainforest Mammals of Singapore’.
The island of Singapore consists of a multitude of small hills, three or four hundred feet high, the summits of many of which are still covered with virgin forest… The vegetation was most luxuriant, comprising enormous forest trees, as well as a variety of ferns, caladiums, and other undergrowth, and abundance of climbing rattan palms. Insects were exceedingly abundant and very interesting and every day furnished scores of new and curious forms. In about two months I obtained no less than 700 species of beetles, a large proportion of which were quite new, and among them were 130 distinct kinds of the elegant Longicorns (Cerambycidæ), so much esteemed by collectors. Almost all these were collected in one patch of jungle, not more than a square mile in extent, and in all my subsequent travels in the East I rarely if ever met with so productive a spot. This exceeding productiveness was due in part no doubt to some favourable conditions in the soil, climate, and vegetation, and to the season being very bright and sunny, with sufficient showers to keep everything fresh.
The malay archipelago (1869) By Alfred Russel wallace
View the lists
press release: 27 September 2019
“Protect Our Last Wilderness – A final call to save Singapore’s priceless natural heritage”View PDF
Singaporeans are slowly awakening to the pressing need of protecting our last wilderness areas, as the following reports illustrate: