Pangolin spotted in Bukit Panjang

From pangolin arti...

Found this in today's Straits Times. Just wanted to highlight the reaction of the residents. This pangolin had "attracted a small crowd trying to take a closer look or snapping pictures with their mobile phones."

I sincerely believe that many Singaporeans lack exposure to nature and that many are interested to find out more but either lack the means or the time to do so. I consistently realise this with conversations with my friends. Venetia whom I just met is interested to visit Chek Jawa to walk on the mud flats but after realizing she has to find a group and pay for it, she hesitated.

So this must be a plus point for biological conservation. Not indifference, but interest.

According to my natural heritage textbook, it's actually quite a rare occurence to see this beauty as they are shy nocturnal animals that sleep in underground burrows during the day. These manmmals wear an armour of large, overlapping scales, which are made of fused hair. They roll themselves into a ball projecting their scales outward in an intimidating pose when they are threatened to protect their soft, naked, underparts within. They are versatile and are found in primary and secondary forests and I guess in our case, even in urban areas! :)

Biological Conservation

What is biological conservation?

It is the conservation of biodiversity which is the full spectrum of living organisms and the variability of nature. The aim of biological conservation is to maintain the diversity of living organisms and their environments and also the interactions between the two.

Why is it important?

I was casually asking a few of my friends whether they think biological conservation was important and I was actually quite rather surprised with their replies. I cannot remember exactly what they told me but roughly along the lines of morality, education and religion.

Hanes was telling me that it was morally right to protect biodiversity. That nature has its intrinsic value whether or not they bring us benefits.

Zhixin was going along the lines that such conservation is essential for education and also to ensure future generations get to enjoy nature.

Huanyan asked me whether God would want us to conserve the biodiversity and it made me think for a while. For this is not an issue that organized religion focus a lot on. We might talk about cloning, or abortion, but biological conservation of species? It's not something discussed as a ethical or moral issue in my religion. So I talked about stewardship. I told Huanyan that that I believed God would want us to take care of the things we have on earth, not to be irresponsible and destructive to the things we own.

Other than education, moral and religious motivations towards biological conservation, people desire to conserve also for nature's aesthetic values, ecological and utilitarian reasons.

I for one would purely conserve because nature is beautiful. It's not everyday that I remember to smell the flowers or follow the outline of a fern, but when I do, it's one of the most amazing experience. Talking to birds and plucking wildflowers/weeds and just taking in deep breaths of fresh air, whether humid rain forest air, or salty mudflats or rotten mangrove wafts, they have therapeutic rewards for those who would only slow down and just for a moment appreciate the wonders of life.

Recently I took a video of mudskippers fighting and in courtship. It was fascinating trying to interprete what they were trying to do. And amazing that I could have a bird's eye view to capture that scene from the broadwalk of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.

Other people conserve because biodiversity is a utility, a resource for food, medication, research inspiration and other needs Mankind might have.

Still others who are more farsighted conserve because biodiversity plays an important role in maintaining the environment, whether ecosystems or climate. When we remove the living organisms that interact with their habitat, we are unknowingly supporting threats like global warming, landslides, harmful weather conditiions and CO2/O2 imbalances. Because both the biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors are required to interact in meaningful ways to maintain our ecological systems.

Order of Scientific Research

1. Find a topic to study
2. Develop research questions and hypothesis
3. Specify how to measure the variables in your hypotheses (operationalize)
4. Design a questionnaire
5. Develop a sample
6. Collect data
7. Prepare a code book and data file
8. Enter survey results in the data file
9. Analyze data statistically
10. Write up and present the results and conclusions

A little update on my progress. It's been a little slow.

But basically, the topic was given to me. :)

I have been spending the past days thinking about my research questions and came up with two:

1. What are the attitudes and perceptions of Singaporeans towards biological conservation?

2. What are the predictors of attitudes and perceptions towards biological conservation?

And I am doing literature review now. And trying to read up more about statistical research from some books.

I am currently quite interested in quantifying attitudes under attitudes, concern and behaviour through asking questions that might reveal those 3 aspects. (Hunter, 2000)

But there is also another method of classifying attitudes. Kellert's 9 basic attitudes (Kellert, 1993) include:
Aesthetic
Dominionistic
Ecologistic
Humanistic
Moralistic
Naturalistic
Negativistic
Scientistic
Utilitarian

And some researchers even created their own scales to test attitudes after failing badly using Cronbach's alpha to check consistency. (Caro, Pelkey and Grigione, 1994)

So there you have it. Some factor analysis. Some Cronbach's alpha. Many ways to quantify attitudes and that's what I'm doing, exploring the written literature, to find out what others have already done, how they did it, to get ideas how I can do mine. Many new terms and ways of thinking encountered so far. But greatly appreciate this opportunity to at least think with the mind of a Scientist.

References

Caro, T.M., Pelkey, N. and Grigione, M. 1994. Effects of Conservation Biology Education on Attitudes Toward Nature. Conservation Biology 8: 846-852

Hunter L.M. (2000) A Comparison of the Environmental Attitudes, Concern, and Behaviors of Native-Born and Foreign-Born U.S. Residents. Population and Environment: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 21:565-580

Kellert, S. R. (1993) Values and Perceptions of Invertebrates. Conservation Biology 7: 845-855

The plight of the Albizias

There was a recent slew of letters and articles about the Albizia trees in Singapore.

My earliest recollection of the Albizia trees was when Bingwen, the bird watcher, pointed them out to me in NJC. He told me these mature big trees are home to many of the birds in NJC. The cockatoos even build their nests in the hollow of the trunks of these trees. Ever since that, I have been mildly interested in these trees.

The Albizia (Paraserianthes falcataria) are extremely fast-growing, soft wood trees, introduced from Indonesia. According to Adrian Loo's letter to the Sunday Times, they have a "shallow root system and expansive crown" making them "susceptible to damage by wind" and hence dangerous to mankind and property, "especially during the current rainy season." As a result, the SLA and NParks had earmarked 63 Albizia trees in South Buona Vista Road to be cut down. One species had already taken the life of a dental assistant in May last year.

However, to the tree-huggers, this was a very painful thing for them. As these trees are big, beautiful, shady. It was also painful for the nature-lovers who stress that these trees provide many nationally endangered bird species such as the changeable hawk eagle and the grey-headed fish eagle with nesting sites and places to perch and roost outside the nature reserves. Therefore these Albizias play a very "important ecological role in the Singapore countryside."

The SLA and NParks responded to the public and eventually cut down the number of trees to be chopped down to 13. These trees were in more dangerous locations due to their "proximity to residential areas and roads, poor condition or leaning position."

It is fascinating that these non-native, very common trees, can elicit so much response from the public. And there are so many different view-points in which one can approach this topic. I was reading a journal entry about how researchers have found out that most U.S. citizens had limited ecological understanding of the environment and their concern for wildlife were largely confined to "attractive and emotionally appealing species." So could this be a reason why the tree huggers were hugging these Albizias rather than other more endangered species?

Or is it a knee-jerk reaction that comes with the news of their impending removal? Just like how if one is going to tear down a historically important architecture, there will also be an uproar by the public about it.

Are these people truely interested in the ecological role that these trees play?

For me, I'm thankful for this chance to view this subject more objectively, after reading about it from the papers, and hearing Prof Hugh Tan and his lab denizens, chatting about it. Prof Tan even received a phone call and a Christmas card from these Albizia-lovers, which I witnessed during my short time in the lab on Thursday, 3/1/08.

My natural instinct would be to protect all that would be going to be destroyed. But now, I would consider the appropriateness of that choice, based on the characteristics of the plant, and the ecological role that it plays, and also how best to do it such that the environment would not get a shock from the sudden removal of its residents.

And to add, the issue is very much about human lives as well. Consider a human life and a tree. I would very much prefer to redeem a human life for a tree, even if the tree is very rare and significant. I wouldn't want anyone to lose or risk losing a loved one because I insisted on the value of a tree. And I too am a lover of nature.

Are these Albizias? They were fallen along AYE towards Jurong.