Thanks to Huang Danwei for the alert to this article "Conserving reefs beside a marine landfill in Singapore" by Prof Chou and Karenne Tun about environmental planning that balances urban needs with conservation of our shores.
"Pulau Semakau, commissioned as a landfill in 1999, now has its extensive reef flat supporting an average live coral cover of 30% and 24 coral genera, with good diversity of other reef invertebrates and large beds of seagrass.
Natural coral recovery also occurred at abandoned rocks not used for construction. Tours are conducted for the public and access is restricted as part of the continuing protection measures.
These are the results of effective environmental planning. The development previously destroyed the reef on the east of Semakau, but steps were taken to protect the western reef, such as building of membrane-lined rock bund that encloses the landfill, and positioning of silt screens to prevent sediment damage during the construction of the perimeter bund."
Chou, L.M. & K.P.P. Tun (2007). Conserving reefs beside a marine landfill in Singapore. Coral Reefs 26: 719-719.
The article is available on SpringerLink (subscription required)
Links to more
Pulau Semakau intertidal walks conducted by the volunteers of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research.
About Pulau Semakau on wildsingapore
Sep 25, 2007
Pulau Semakau: conservation and urban needs
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Hi... Pulau Semakau sounds interesting!! Was intending to go there to see it for myself... but was wondering how to get to Pulau Semakau? Do we have to follow a group or we can go there by ourselves?
Glad to hear of your interest. More information about Pulau Semakau is in the link in the post.
http://www.wildsingapore.com/places/semakau.htm
Currently, you can only go to Semakau with one of the designated special interest groups. All the details in the wildsingapore link.
Post a Comment