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SINGAPORE: One of the unforeseen pleasures of the circuit breaker from April 7 to June 1 was the visual flourishing of herbal life in Singapore, when lawn-cutting and weeding activities ceased.
Tropical wildflowers, seedlings from forest shrubs and local young trees sprouted in the patches of grass that were once cut up close. More and more butterflies, bees and birds have been observed flying over residential properties, road edges and park connectors.
And other people also appreciated the revitalized spaces, judging by the positive reactions on social media. Many Internet users have expressed their appreciation for their good looks and the diversity of plant and animal life. Some have recalled how these lush landscapes reminded them of Singapore in the 1960s and 1970s.
On a practical level, some have warned that less well-maintained green spaces would have air and noise pollutants from leaf blowers and fuel cutters.
At a parliamentary consultation on 5 June, Mr Walter Theseira raised the fact that a less common interview can simply save public spending, reduce work wishes and biodiversity in Singapore.
The debate over whether we allow the lawn to grow freely leads us to reconsider our technique of handling the greenery of the island.
As urban strategists, we believe that “renaturalization”, i.e. allowing spontaneous expansion of plants into man-made spaces, can shape ecologically sustainable and healthy cities, and can be implemented in Singapore.
THE BENEFITS OF RENATURALIZATION
Unlike Singapore’s popular pre-COVID on trimmed lawns, renatured spaces help more varied and resilient ecosystems. The presence of varied plants and their leaf disorder helps soil quality and prevents erosion.
They also protect cities and the rest of their people from flash floods and heat from developing threats due to our global climate emergency. THE Ventus garden of NUS, a renatured lawn of 2,500 m2, gives a positive example: after 18 months without cutting, its surface temperature drops four degrees Celsius than that of the surrounding lawn.
Less common lawn cutting can generate a large fuel shipment for gardening staff and the use of motorized mowers and blowers, reducing greenhouse fuel emissions. Reducing the hours lately spent mowing, growing, transplanting and fertilizing would also cost and save resources.
Many villages have come to adopt more naturalistic landscapes in their concrete jungles.
The design of New York’s High Line will pay homage to its history as a desert rail viaduct, with plenty of plants evoking the landscapes of forests and meadows. London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park features colorful grasslands of local wildflowers.
Both parks incorporate sustainable regimes that minimize extensive lawn cutting and the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
However, letting Mother Nature flourish can find resistance through some Singaporeans who are used to cleaning and fixing the edges.
In addition, allowing plants to grow necessarily leads to greater long-term biodiversity; Fast-growing invasive species, such as Mile-A-Minute vines and Lalang grass, can aggressively outperform local slow-growing plants, as we can see in some urban scrubland spaces with little variety of plants.
Agencies, in turn, may be agitated by public court cases about mosquito breeding in a hidden disorder and other unwanted animals, such as snakes, that are possibly hiding in the tall grass. There are also protection considerations with high pastures that pose a chimney threat in dry weather or block traffic view.
NO ZERO MAINTENANCE
That is why it should be noted that renaturalizing Singapore’s green spaces would not mean letting them grow without maintenance.
Instead, Singapore can make an effective transition from many of its green spaces to a controlled state of “natural”, balancing the ecological benefits of spontaneous plant expansion with the desire to avoid possible inconvenience to residents.
The shift to a post-rupture renaturation technique would boost the city’s 10-year nature program of the National Parks Council, announced in March 2020.
Based on Singapore’s many urban design and control assets, the program aims such as restoring nature in the urban landscape, connecting green spaces with others on an island-wide scale, and promoting landscape industry through science and technology.
In line with this new “City in Nature” vision, we create a step-by-step procedure to renaturalize Singapore’s green spaces.
First, we want to start with essential maintenance practices of indiscriminate cutting.
Maintenance activities would come with normal waste cleaning, the removal of the state’s water resources to prevent mosquito breeding, and the garage on the edges of parcels so that pedestrian and vehicle traffic is not hindered.
We also deserve to compare the green spaces that have become wilder the two months of the automatic switch to see which are the most productive and suitable for long-term renaturation.
“Intermediate” lawn spaces that are not suitable for other uses, such as those along high-traffic roads and car parks, are ideal. But spaces that exist for functional reasons, such as sports fields, will want to stay more close, while green spaces around the drains require common maintenance to avoid exposure to snakes and vermin.
Ultimately, we can diversify the types and intensity of control activities based on site desires.
Let’s take the example of vegetation at the roadside: we can reduce the frequency of lawn mower every two weeks to once each quarter, and increase the cutting heights from five cm to 30 cm.
Green spaces in schools can be used simply as living laboratories. Commonwealth High School, for example, has cultivated gardens that resemble tropical forests, wetlands, etc., so that academics can practice ecosystems and their population at work.
Further evolution can see schoolyards as places for our next generation to regain classic wisdom about edible and medicinal weeds. And our landscapers can move from care, by observing and promoting the slowest-growing local species, for example.
We, who intentionally renaturalized urban vegetation can become a dynamic new popular for Singapore. This technique would allow us to tame a living network of green spaces rich in plants and animals, to be explored and appreciated by other people from all walks of life.
Yun Hye Hwang is an associate professor at NUS, an accredited landscape architect and landscape researcher with experience in socio-ecological design and control methods that meet the emerging demands of high-density cities. Sarah Ichioka is an urban planner, curator and management of Desire Lines, a strategic consulting company for organizations and projects with environmental, cultural and social impact.