Problem overview:

     Awareness and visions: NGOs play an important role in creating environmental awareness. In this example, a local NGO called the Nature Society Singapore (NSS) had played an important role, not just in creating awareness, but to present useful information that had lead the government to discontinue a project that could have resulted in environmental damage.

     Meeting information requirements: This example demonstrates how an Environmental Impact Assessment can produce different outcomes if done by 2 different groups of researchers and with different background interest.

Background:

      Determining the best land-use alternative by undertaking the EIA

      There are many active NGOs that focus on environmental issues. Different NGOs play different roles and take different actions to counter with controversial environmental problems. The Nature Society Singapore, a local NGO, conducted and published an EIA report on a golf course project at Pierce Reservoir, to give evidence concerning disastrous ecological effects of the project.

      NSS is the oldest NGO in Singapore and has its roots with the Malayan Nature Society in Malaysia, back in 1940. NSS has a membership of over 2,000 and is very active in its pursuit of its objectives:

• to promote an interest in the flora and fauna of Singapore and the surrounding Southeast Asia.
  
  
• to promote an awareness of nature and the environment and the conservation of our natural heritage and environment
  
  
• to initiate and support research projects relating to the study and conservation of nature and the environment
  
  
• to pursue any or all the above objectives and such other activities as are relevant to nature and conservation of nature and the environment.

      Among some of the significant contributions made by NSS is the publication of a Master Plan for the Conservation of Nature in Singapore, published in October 1990. The Master Plan recommended over 20 nature areas for conservation and some of these were adopted in the Singapore Green Plan on Nature Conservation. Perhaps the most notable contribution in the recent years was the EIA it conducted sometime in 1992 when the Public Utilities Board (PUB) proposed a golf course to be constructed at the Pierce Reservoir. This project was to convert part of the Lower Pierce Reservoir, which is a water catchment area, into a golf course.

      The PUB had conducted an ad hoc EIA but as there is no legislation on EIA in Singapore, there was no requirement that the results be published. The Nature Society (Singapore) conducted its own EIA, and the results showed that it would be an ecological disaster to build such a course. Buttressed by some 17,000 signatures, NSS published an EIA report on the project and made a petition to the government. Although the government decided to shelve its plan but did not attribute it the NSS's petition, it must have been influenced by it.

      There are a number of specialised sub-groups within the NSS in order to facilitate its functions. These include the Bird, Environment, Vertebrate, Marine Conservation, Plant and Legal sub-groups. Its publications include the bimonthly Nature News newsletter, the quarterly Nature Watch magazine, Pangolin. The Bird sub-group publishes the quarter Singapore Avifauna.