A beach clean-up has always been something I yearn for ever since I came across event postings about it. However, I never had the chance to amidst the hectic school term and work schedule during the holidays. Thankfully, being part of the Biodiversity Friends Forum, I had a greater propensity to indulge in environmental-related pursuits. Thus, I started out by searching on the web for opportunities to partake in beach clean-up activities and realised that I could actually organise my own without being part of an organisation. As such, I called upon my group friends who I usually go on hikes and nature walks with.

Being a coastal island, beaches in Singapore are not limited. We narrowed our options down to East Coast Park as it is one of the most popular beaches in Singapore with high visitorship and especially since it was a weekend, we figured that there may be a higher volume of trash as a result of the higher human traffic hence, we decided it would be wise to select East Coast Park to conduct our beach clean-up.

Upon arrival at the East Coast Park, we were greeted by a bunch of adorable furry dogs in the dog run which is also the biggest dog run in the east that opened in 2020. As we strolled along the coastline, we were amazed by how pristine the shore looked. However, when we finally found a spot to commence our beach clean-up, it was only then we realised how filthy the beach was. With closer inspection of the ground, we could see bits and pieces of trash such as styrofoam that were buried in the sand and many cigarette butts littered across. The styrofoam pieces lying around the ground (probably from takeaway containers brought by beach-goers) alongside the cigarette butts can result in grave implications especially to our marine life when they are washed into the ocean. Styrofoams are made up of polystyrene, which is a brittle material and can break down into small pieces readily, leading to difficulty in clean-ups as we have experienced. They are also often mistaken as food by marine life which is extremely detrimental when ingested since it can lead to starvation or choking. As for cigarette butts, they are known to be the most common type of marine debris that is found and are a toxic waste since most cigarette filters are made out of a plastic-like material that is known as cellulose acetate. The fibres in cigarette filters are not easy to degrade and are akin to the plastics in our oceans where the UV rays break the fibres down into smaller pieces, but they do not completely disintegrate. This gives rise to a critical problem of microplastics, a term that was only introduced in 2004. Microplastics are small pieces of plastics that are less than 5mm in length and the term has recently resurfaced after they were discovered in our blood and even in the food we eat. Such discovery magnifies the issue of land pollution which can subsequently contribute to pollution in the sea. Therefore, the next time you see any rubbish on the beach or anywhere please do pick them up not just to do the environment a favour but yourself as well.

“While beach clean-ups may seem trivial to some, it plays a pivotal role in keeping our coastline safe and clean.”

HX

As we continued our journey across the coarse white sand, we came across a few unconventional pieces of trash such as shampoo bottles, nails or even dirty rags. Apart from polluting the environment, some of these items can pose as hazards to beach-goers and possibly lead to unforeseen circumstances in the event an injury is inflicted. As such, while beach clean-ups may seem trivial to some, it plays a pivotal role in keeping the coastline safe and clean. These findings also speak volumes about the rampant littering that promotes marine pollution hence, further sounding the alarm to the lacking knowledge the public has on the implications of littering as well as the awareness to the severity of such problem, prompting urgency in the resolution of the problem at hand.

Using what I have learnt during my entomology walk, I was able to spot the carcass of what is known as the Anomala albopilosa or the Green Chafer Beetle, which has a stunning green coat that looked exquisite. That was the first time I could closely examine a beetle considering how I am not so much a creepy crawlies fan. As the name suggests, they are herbivorous and mainly feed on plants and are considered destructive sugarcane pests.

“Until we start advocating for a change and taking charge of our own actions, the slogan ‘save the environment’ will never be realised”

HX

Overall, the beach clean-up was a great success. Although the weather was in our favour when we started the clean-up, the scorching afternoon sun was merciless near the end. Coupled with the fact that the majority of the trash were difficult to pick as they were small in size, it was definitely not as easy as it seems. Nevertheless, this experience was a worthwhile one. While I always had the perception that our beaches are relatively clean, it is only on close inspection where I realised the reality of our own actions. “We are our own worst enemy” as quoted by Una Mccormack. Until we start advocating for a change and taking charge of our own actions, the slogan ‘save the environment’ will never be realised.

Throughout the field trips I have signed up for during BFF 2022, I have been impressed upon the importance of preserving our nature reserves, and how numerous nature parks have been introduced as green buffers to enhance the health of the reserves. As such, I decided that the best way to reinforce what I have learnt through the field trips, as well as spread the conservation narrative, is to host a trip myself in one of the nature parks.

As I was thinking of which park to visit, Thomson Nature Park caught my eye, as it is the latest edition to the variety of buffer parks, and I have never been there myself. Located east of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR), Thomson Nature Park only opened in 2019, and is claimed to pack rich cultural heritage as well as host a rich array of biodiversity. I thought to myself, what better place to explore than this park?

The esteemed audience I invited to the trip are a few of my peers whom I frequently hike with around nature reserves such as Bukit Timah Nature Reserve. I have previously also brought them to the Festival of Biodiversity 2022, held at the Botanic Gardens. Ironically, while we have been visiting places of nature with rich biodiversity, we did not quite pay attention to them, instead focusing on catching up and the thrill of being lost among the greenery. They also happen to be majoring in computer science, a seemingly completely unrelated field to ecology, biodiversity, and nature in general. Hence, I decided that they were the perfect audience, as they are curious individuals who are keen to learn and are not averse to sweltering heat or pesky mosquitoes either. Through the walk, I hoped to introduce, as Richard Dawkins put it, an appetite for wonder, wonder for nature and its might among my peers.

The field trip did not begin as smooth sailing as I hoped for. To start off, it was a very quiet day, and other than a couple of sweat bees being attracted to me, as well as an unidentified pupa on a Leea indica, there was not much fauna to flaunt about. Instead, I chose to focus on the very limited knowledge I have on forest vegetation.

We came across a couple species of orchids, which I pointed out – Arundina graminifolia, the bamboo orchid, and Grammatophyllum speciosum, the tiger orchid. These are orchid species that are native to Singapore. A. graminifolia is a terrestrial orchid (most orchids are epiphytic) that is relatively common in Singapore, and has been observed to be used in streetscape. G. speciosum, on the other hand, is an epiphyte. While labelled as an epiphyte, the tiger orchid is versatile and can be planted on ground as well as on trees. It is presumed nationally extinct, but we are still able to appreciate them in nature parks today thanks to the efforts of NParks and the species recovery programme conducted on orchids.

We also came across two interesting plants that exhibit very unique flowering behaviour – Ficus variegata, the common red-stem fig, and Artocarpus heterophyllus, the jackfruit. I picked up a fallen unpollinated fruit of the fig, and broke open the syconium to show my friends the flowers in the hollow of the “fruit”. I also shared the amazing story of how figs are pollinated, although my friends have heard me mention it many times (it involves a type of wasp). My friend then prompted the question of whether it is a flower or a fruit, to which I replied that it is kinda both. Then, to further blow their minds, I also shared as we came across the jackfruit that the fruit is also the flowers, except this time the flowers are all around what we eventually call the fruit – in some sense the opposite of the fig. Funnily enough, both figs and jackfruit belong to the same family, Moraceae.

As we continued fumbling along the path (it is quite amazing how my friends and I always seem to lose ourselves whenever we visit nature parks and reserves), I was concerned with an underwhelming trip as we just saw numerous insects, fungi, and plants, but they are all not my area of expertise, and all I could say was “I’m not sure what’s that”. The sounds of disturbed canopy cover only revealed the occasional plantain squirrel or long-tailed macaques. It really was turning out to be quite the boring walk.

Fortunately, Lady Luck appeared to smile on us, for we finally caught sight of movement of a figure on the canopy in the distant Adenanthera pavonina tree. As I was about to dismiss it as yet another long-tailed macaque, I realised that it was much darker in colour. That got me excited, as we happened to be walking along the Langur Trail, and Thomson Nature Park was known as one of the few locations to see the very elusive Raffle’s Banded Langur. Was that it?

My friends and I stood still and quietly strained our necks over the undergrowth to scrutinise the canopy, waiting to see further movement. Then a head peeked out for a split second, a head with unmistakable facial features – whitish eye rings and crescent-shaped mark between the eye and ear. My friends were in awe, as was I. It was, after all, our first time seeing this extremely rare and shy species. It is critically endangered, with only a population of roughly 70 left in Singapore.

Once more common, the Raffles’ banded langur’s population was slowly restricted to only Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (BTNR) and CCNR due to aggressive development which turned Singapore to the urban metropolitan city today. The population in BTNR slowly disappeared, leaving CCNR being the only area in Singapore where we could spot these beautiful primates. However, after 30 years of absence, a very small number of langurs were once again spotted in BTNR, perhaps attributed to the construction of the BKE Eco-Link which once again bridged BTNR and CCNR, as they have been separated by a highway during the development of Singapore.

With that being the highlight of the trip, I closed the field trip by summarising the importance of having these buffer parks, which enables species such as the Raffles’ banded langurs to be able to recover their populations, as well as the countless other flora and fauna that are threatened by human disruptions. While the trip was not a life-changing encounter that will convert my friends to devote their lives to conservation, I believe that they definitely have a newfound appreciation for the biodiversity in Singapore, and we even tossed around the idea of participating in the OneMillionTrees movement and planting some trees together in the near future.

From this walk, I discovered that I still have a very long way to go to improve my knowledge of the local flora and fauna, such as the glaring gap in identification of forest plants, fungi, and insects. And, I know that if I want to influence more people to take better care of our nature and wildlife, I will have to first be more proficient in understanding the exact dynamics of the biodiversity we possess. Nonetheless, mission accomplished for now, and that’s one count for an act for nature!

Written by: Collin Chua

I had wanted to try participating in a beach cleanup for quite some, especially since the first beach cleanup I had signed up for was cancelled due to wet weather (although my friend and I had already travelled all the way from the west to the east for it ). But on World Environment Day, I finally got the chance to take part in a beach cleanup organised by Youth Corps Singapore (YCS).

The event was called #SeasTheDay Goes International. Beach cleanups were held concurrently at 5 locations across Singapore, including Pasir Ris Park, Coney Island and East Coast Park. To celebrate World Environment Day (5 June) and World Ocean Day (8 June), beach cleanups were also held by international partners in Indonesia, Japan and Europe on the same day (but different timings due to time differences). My sister and I signed up for the beach cleanup at Pasir Ris Park because as an avid birder (bird photographer), I wanted to photograph the resident birds there (Pasir Ris Park is known to have resident Spotted Wood Owls and Crested Goshawks).

So on a nice Sunday morning, we found ourselves waking up at 7am just to travel from Choa Chu Kang all the way to Pasir Ris for a beach cleanup. While walking towards the meeting point that was shown in the map YCS had provided us in their email, we saw several people clad in blue and green shirts (like us) looking just as lost as we were. Everyone seemed to have no idea where exactly we were supposed to meet. I think we may have been earlier than the YCS Volunteer Leaders (VLs). Anyways, after a while, my sister and I saw a group of people gathering near the supposed meeting point, so we walked over and sure enough, found that we were in the right place. After a very awkward wait for the rest of the volunteers to join us, we had a short round of self-introduction followed by a briefing. Then we were off to our allocated part of the beach to pick up litter!

Using borrowed tongs and a recycled rice bag from Willing Hearts, we went about the beach picking up the little bits of trash that we saw. These included plastic straws, cups and cigarette buds. To our surprise, the part of the beach we were at had less trash than we had expected. However, we still did our best to pick up the small pieces of litter that we could spot. We placed sharp objects that we found, such as glass shards, into a separate pail so that they wouldn’t pierce through the bag.

After about half an hour under the blazing sun, we were all tired and sweating profusely. We took a short water break, and our VL checked in to make sure everyone was feeling alright. Although we all wanted to stay under the shade longer, we knew that our job cleaning up the beach was not done. So we all took up our gear and spread out to continue picking up the litter.

After an hour and a half, we gathered back together to conclude the cleanup session. We weighed our bags of trash and found that we collected a total of 10kg of trash!! This was really surprising to me considering the bits of trash that we picked up mostly consisted of light items like straws and plastic bags. We then had a debrief and shared some of our interesting finds. One of the participants said that she found a broken hanger as well as straws that had grown into the mangroves. These were extremely hard to pull out and for some, there was just no way to get them out. This made me realise that our trash is “becoming part of nature”, which is sad because that’s not natural and can actually harm the environment in the long run. It made me feel even more motivated to continue playing my part for the environment and encouraging others to do the same too. This can be done through simple actions like using reusable bags and straws (or no straws at all), and participating in more environment-related volunteer opportunities.

All in all, despite the scorching sun, I think this beach cleanup was a new and eye-opening experience for me! I really had a lot of fun and would do it again!!