Your views
Support for green pockets heartening
I write with regard to "Walking among giants" and "Learning forest opens to public" (The New Paper, April 1) about Prime Minster Lee Hsien Loong opening the latest addition to the Botanic Gardens.
This is a forest that predates our becoming the metropolis that we are now, perhaps going back to the very beginning of life on this little island of ours.
A prehistoric enclave, where tall trees and dense vegetation have grown unmolested for more than a hundred years according to records kept, but which probably dates back much further to a period when time stood still and changes were minimal. Until Sir Stamford Raffles came along and recognised the commercial potential of this place.
Now, with most of our forest lost, it bodes well for the future that we are able to retain something like this, with what little animal life there is.
This will enable future generations to appreciate the richness of biodiversity that once existed throughout, preserved in these little pockets.
We must sustain these small areas, placing in them all that is available by way of plant and animal life that can thrive, despite being surrounded by unrelenting urbanisation.
This will provide a valuable lesson on how to manage the variety of plant and animal life found within a confined habitat, without ever losing it.
It is heartening to see so much support for this, from our leader to those involved in one way or another, to the general public who come out in droves to take it all in and respect what we have by way of natural heritage.
MANORAJ RAJATHURAI
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