Nature park at planned Bukit Timah Turf City will preserve globally threatened wildlife, rare flora

SINGAPORE – Residents of the future Bukit Timah Turf City will have a new nature park for a backyard, home to the shy pangolin and a critically endangered songbird.

On Oct 10, National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat announced on social media that two forested areas at the northern edges of Turf City will be connected to form a green oasis of up to 40ha.

Bukit Tinggi, the forest patch next to Swiss Club, and the adjacent – and larger – Eng Neo Avenue Forest will be connected by a 400m-long green corridor to enable wildlife movement.

This merging will form the ninth nature park bordering the green lungs of Singapore – the Central Catchment and Bukit Timah nature reserves. Other parks abutting them include Thomson and Windsor nature parks.

“It will serve as a buffer to protect the Central Catchment Nature Reserve (CCNR) from urban development, while providing more opportunities for nature-based recreation,” said Mr Chee in a Facebook post.

An environmental impact study for the 176ha Bukit Timah Turf City – a planned housing estate – and inputs from nature advocates showed that these lesser-known forested areas are rich in biodiversity and home to 25 fauna species of conservation significance.

Among them are the globally critically endangered Sunda pangolin, the straw-headed bulbul songbird and the nationally threatened bamboo bat.

Of the plant species recorded in the study area, 177 were of conservation significance, according to the study done by infrastructure consulting firm Aecom between 2021 and 2024.

Mr Chee said 80 per cent of the nature park area will be conserved as green spaces. Trails, boardwalks and nature play features will be added for parkgoers.

The National Parks Board (NParks) is conducting feasibility studies for the park area.

This includes creating an early concept design of the upcoming park and identifying existing infrastructure such as water mains, electrical cables, telecommunications lines and other underground services, said the statutory board and the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).

Other selected landscapes of Bukit Timah Turf City, such as the Fairways Quarters courtyard next to Eng Neo Avenue Forest, will also be enhanced as recreational spaces, they told The Straits Times on Oct 17.

Nature parks serve as a buffer to protect Singapore’s nature reserves from the impacts of urbanisation – in this case, the development of 15,000 to 20,000 private and public homes that will form Turf City in 20 to 30 years.

An MRT station for the upcoming Cross Island Line will also be built in the area.

Nature parks provide additional, safeguarded habitats for forest creatures. Such parks also reduce footfall on the more fragile nature reserves by providing the public with alternative green spaces.

“During the Covid-19 pandemic, we saw high visitorship to our nature reserves and parks, including nature parks adjacent to Bukit Timah and Central Catchment nature reserves. Visitorship to the nature reserves and nature parks has remained generally high since,” said NParks and URA.

Aecom’s environmental impact study found that more than half of Bukit Timah Turf City is non-vegetated or covered by urban vegetation, as these were largely built-up areas.

Secondary forests dominated by native trees comprise only 10 per cent of the total area and are found mostly in Eng Neo Avenue Forest and Bukit Tinggi, said NParks and URA.

Other habitat types recorded across the entire Turf City are abandoned land forest, secondary forest dominated by non-native exotic trees, scrubland and water bodies.

It was reported in 2024 that about one-third of the Bukit Timah Turf City estate will be set aside for green spaces such as parks, open spaces and natural greenery.

Aecom’s study recommended a larger area be conserved, extending down from the proposed nature park boundaries.

During consultations with the authorities, advocates and the Nature Society Singapore (NSS) lobbied hard to preserve more habitats across Turf City that contribute to the ecology of the area.

One of them is an isolated forest stretch in the middle of the former racecourse.

The study also proposed ways to monitor and manage the environmental impact of the construction works, noted the government agencies.

These include inspections to minimise injury to fauna during site clearance, and planning the clearance works progressively and carefully to guide wildlife towards the forests that will be retained.

Having a wildlife response plan in place when encountering animals around or in the worksite was also recommended.

Nature advocates who ST spoke to were relatively satisfied that much of Eng Neo Avenue Forest and Bukit Tinggi will be preserved.

While Bukit Tinggi is smaller, the native forest was the most diverse and concentrated, with nearly 100 nationally threatened plants, said Aecom’s study, which mapped plants of conservation significance.

“On the map, Bukit Tinggi basically lit up like a Christmas tree. You hardly ever see that in areas outside of nature reserves,” said Mr Muhammad Nasry Abdul Nasir, executive director of the Singapore Youth Voices for Biodiversity, the local chapter of a global youth network concerned with tackling nature loss.

“This tells you the forest patch is extremely mature or possibly even a remnant of primary forest that was perhaps cut off from the rest of the nature reserves when the PIE was first built,” he added.

Singapore’s only native vanilla plant – the Vanilla griffithii, thought to exist within only the Central Catchment Nature Reserve – was also recorded.

Nature advocates are hoping that a wildlife crossing bridge much like Eco-Link@BKE will be built across the PIE to link the future nature park and the nature reserve.

“Maintaining connectivity within the (nature park) is a welcome move, but it is pointless if it just leads to a dead end, in this case, the expressway,” added Mr Nasry.

Mr Alan OwYong, committee member of the NSS Bird Group, said roadkill has been recorded when wildlife crosses over the expressway and Eng Neo Avenue. Most of them are snakes and small ground mammals.

The Aecom study also recommended crossings at selected areas to allow creatures to move under roads.

Mr Nasry noted that a wildlife bridge across the PIE will be an engineering challenge, as the forests on either side are on lower ground. The forest edges have to be handled sensitively if slopes were to be built.