Sustainability and Singapore

I recently got my hands on the book Sustainability and Cities, by Dr Ooi Giok Leng of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). An extract:

The primacy of economic objectives in environmental planning [in Singapore] is evident in four ways.

First, the government has been reluctant to implement EIA (environmental impact assessment) legislation, although the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources has claimed that there is an internal process which assesses the environmental impact of all development projects that require its planning and building or construction approval... The government's reluctance to legislate EIAs has also been attributed to the concern that they would hinder the progress of economic development.

Second, nature is also incorporated into the development schema because of its economic value such as for tourism or a recreational resource. Hence, nature is more often than not confined to "carefully selected sanctuaries" such as nature reserves...

Third, the areas that have been designated as Nature Areas in the Concept Plan have, technically speaking, little legal status. This means that they are not protected against disturbance or development if there are other competing uses of national and strategic interest which arise from time to time. Indeed, this has been the experience since the 1960s. The only remaining primary rainforest nature reserve that had been linked to a mature secondary rainforest reserve was effectively divided into two by an expressway that was built in the 1980s. This development decision was made by the Ministry of National Development, the ministry which also administers the work of nature conservation. Thus, the conservation and preservation of such areas has always been qualified by planning authorities as a status that will remain for as long as possible. The trend therefore has been to treat nature reserves like the city's land bank to be drawn on for development whenever the need arises.

Fourth and most importantly, the government tends to equate the gains from pollution control with "conservation" effort and "sustainable development". According to Hilton and Manning (1995) this is erroneous. While the government argues that the "cleaning and greening" of Singapore have created an aesthetically pleasing environment, others argue that the physical changes which occured have been "at the expense of the indigenous terrestrial and marine habitats, ecological health, and indigenous biota" (Savage 1992, p. 207)