We Are Not Alone!
A rumination on biodiversity and the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity, Singapore
by Marcus Ng of Singapore
Originally published on www.aquaticquotient.com
Reprinted by permission.
Aquarticles
IT IS telling that newcomers to the aquarium hobby soon become astounded, even
taken aback, at the immense variety of species inhabiting this sphere of activity. For
some, it is even frustrating, or annoying, for example, when they find that the little
schooling fish they have just purchased prove to be "inferior" green neons,
rather than brazen cardinal tetras (both members of the Paracheirodon genus). There are
countless instances of Cyprinid algae-eater misidentification resulting in cases of
unhappy cohabitation between a reluctant grazer and its hapless owner, through no fault of
the former.
Nature's multitude: Lost and never found
Homo sapiens may be the most visible species to many, but the naked ape shares his planet
with an estimated 13-14 million other species. Barely 1.75 million of these have been
formally described and catalogued by science, a dearth of knowledge that should keep
taxonomists in permanent employment and which inspires both awe and despair in the student
of nature. Of those known, little is known beyond the existence and morphology of about
99% of species, which is hardly a surprise considering that the oceans' uncharted depths
and infinitude of denizens remain man's true final frontier (even some large whale species
are known only from a single skull or beached carcass). This ignorance also stems from the
sheer rarity (which as Darwin noted, is the precursor to extinction) of many species,
whether by accident of nature or less happily, the influence of man's activities on a
species' viability through direct decimation or environmental degradation.
Biodiversity: A burning subject
While some optimists argue that nature is coping pretty well, citing cases such as
expanding northern forests and recasting (fudging rather) species loss estimates by
negating the impact of local extinctions (unfortunately, a sufficient number of local
extinctions still adds to total global, irreversible extinction), there is arguably a
growing crisis of biodiversity in the regions which harbour the greatest number of
terrestrial species, namely the tropical and equatorial zones. The fertile combination of
year-round warmth and abundant water has proven to be a mixed blessing, offering nature
scope for unparalleled divergence of life-forms (a single hectare of rainforest can
shelter more than 480 species of trees, while temperate forests are largely monospecific),
but also serving as a seemingly inexhaustible resource of food, water, timber and minerals
for man.
In the last century, however, unbalanced modernisation has endowed human populations in
these regions with unprecedented fecundity and material aspirations, coupled with stifling
disparities in the distribution of income and economic opportunities. With little recourse
to hop on the " infotech bandwagon", the inhabitants of these pressured lands
see few alternatives but to exploit their natural wealth at an intensiveness beyond
sustainability, be it the harvesting of feline copulatory organs or hunting of bush meat.
With little sense of ownership over their vast genetic assets, deficit-laden nations
turn over their land to logging and agro-industrial groups whose activities generate
instant revenue streams. Ignorance, married to the corruption that mars many tropical
administrations, offers no reprieve to degrading environments and the people who might
best profit from their preservation. In Brazil, ill-defined and less enforced property
rights have led to violence between local peoples, migrants and encroaching logging firms.
Similarly, logging concessions that clash with the rights of local farmers have seen both
sides using fire as a weapon - large firms burn land to drive out traditional
smallholders, while uprooted and landless individuals pay back in kind. Elsewhere, war
exacts toil on both man and nature: Cambodia's bloody civil war in the 1970s resulted in
the loss of half of its forests.
No less a detached, business-minded entity than the Economist newspaper (itself often
accused of underplaying environmental concerns) has stated that "Rapid deforestation
is rarely in the economic interest of the country concerned. More often it is due to a
combination of bad policies, population growth and poverty."
Some researchers estimate that by 2050, half of all species alive today could be lost
forever. But since only a tiny portion of existing species have been identified, the real
rate of loss could well be vastly higher. This is possibly the greatest and most abrupt
mass extinction experienced since the closure of Cretaceous Park due to cosmically bad
weather.
Treasure island
While an anomaly in socio-economic development, Singapore shares with other nations in its
latitude a natural richness that belies its size. This island, created by a momentous rise
in sea levels following the thaw of the last Ice Age (and which risks a further dunking if
global carbon emissions continue unabated), also offers a possible model on the impact of
intense urbanisation in tropical climes. The outlook, however, is tenuous, as it remains
to be seen whether the official allotment of nature areas (currently at 5% of land area)
can be reconciled with future demands by the economy and human population. While the loss
of island's ancient megafauna is accepted (though regretted), this sunny isle still
punches above its weight in biodiversity rankings, and it is this writer's urgent hope
that a sense of appreciation of this natural heritage and its imperilled state will spur
individual thought, if not action, towards its conservation.
Though hackneyed to some, the figures bear repeating. This miniscule island harbours as
many native flowering plants as New Zealand (which is 400 times larger) and more
vertebrate species than torrid Cuba (200 times larger). Fern Valley in Bukit Timah Nature
Reserve is home to about 100 species of ferns, many of which are found nowhere else in the
world (and threatened by nearby quarrying). One conservationist has pointed out that the
number of plant species growing in the Reserve exceeds that of the entire North American
continent! Another survey by an entomologist found nearly 10,000 species of beetles, 200
ants and 200 cockroaches in the Reserve. In the Central Catchment Area (spanning just
about 1,700 hectares), there are some 61 species of fishes (this DOES not include
flowerhorn cichlids, tilapia and guppies!), 23 species of freshwater crabs and prawns, 36
species of water beetles, 41 types of leaf and stick insects, 79 dragon/damsel flies and
over 380 species of butterflies. Bird species number some 200 (NOT including mynahs,
crows, pigeons and sparrows). The tetrapod (mammals, reptiles and amphibians) count is
141, and something tells me that few would mourn the passing of Presbytis femoralis
australis, a sub-species of banded leaf-monkey unique to Singapore. Confined to a
handful of individuals in the Reserve, this herbivorous monkey is now surviving on
borrowed time. A similar fate befalls other mammals endemic to Singapore such as the
Creamed-Coloured Giant Squirrel, the Shrew-faced Ground Squirrel, the Red Spiny Rat and
the Lesser Mousedeer.
Raffles' "Biopolis"
One reason for the prevalent general ignorance of Singapore's biodiversity wealth (how
often one hears youths dismissing as "longkang fish" the jewels in forest
streams by the reservoirs) could be the absence of a public resource that is both accurate
and accessible. For years, an opportunity has been lost by the Science Centre's focus on
the applied sciences, while the local zoological and botanical parks have collections that
underplay local, even regional, biodiversity in favour of big and showy specimens (the
so-called Bambi syndrome). Major cities in America, Australia, Europe and even
neighbouring capitals in Southeast Asia tend to major museums housing Natural History
collections that showcase the native fauna and flora of these lands, giving generations of
school children a lasting imprint into the organisms that share their homeland. When a
sense of "ownership" or identity towards unique indigenous creatures, plants and
habitats is fostered, together with the feeling that their permanent loss represents a
vital loss in national inheritance, it may well be that such citizens will regard a patch
of pristine forest or wetland as a treasure to be savoured, rather than a piece of
wasteland for harvesting or reclamation.
An entire cohort of Singaporeans has missed out on such an experience, and it is only
in the last decade or so that public and press attention has been periodically diverted to
the island's natural heritage. This is no accident of history, however. Singapore's
founding father, Sir Stamford Raffles, an avid collector of natural oddities, had laid the
foundations for what could have been one of the premier natural history collections of the
entire world, when he set upon the idea of establishing a natural history and anthropology
museum in 1823. Completed in 1849, the Raffles Museum quickly emerged as a leading centre
of tropical zoological research, and many Southeast Asian species beloved of the aquarium
hobby (e.g. the harlequin rasbora) were first described by the museum's experts. The
museum later shifted to the stately Stamford Road premises which now house the Singapore
History Museum. For over a century, its curators amassed an splendid catalogue of wildlife
from Southeast Asia, including a 42 ft whale found near Malacca and a 6 ft leathery turtle
shipwrecked in Siglap.
After independence, the museum was renamed the National Museum of Singapore. In 1972,
the authorities decided that National Education should focus exclusively on social and
political history, and with the conception of the Science Centre, the National Museum's
zoological collection was transferred to the care of the National University of Singapore,
where it languished like a pile of unwanted junk in some huts along Ayer Rajah Road. In
the process, several key specimens were destroyed or redistributed, and the estimable
whale skeleton is now drawing oo's and ahh's from the halls of Kuala Lumpur's Muzium
Negara.
Encroaching development projects forced a number of relocations and the collection was
in real danger of destruction until a number of renowned natural history museums from
around the world, including the eminent British Museum, began to express a keen interest
in acquiring the specimens. With the realisation that this moulding bunch of dead things
is actually of some value (perhaps because the foreign talent says so!), a permanent home
for the collection was found in the NUS Science Faculty in Kent Ridge, where it has
occupied three floors in the Science Library Building since 1987.
In 1998, the Zoology collection became part of the newly christened Raffles Museum of
Biodiversity Research, which also houses the fungal and bacteria culture collection of the
NUS Department of Biological Science and the NUS Herbarium, which has grown to become a
major resource for botanical research in Singapore and Southeast Asian plants. The
museum's public gallery opened in 2001 and welcomes visitors on weekdays, with selected
educational programmes for students and the general public. It could be said that the RMBR
is one of the richest museums and references for Southeast Asian natural history, as well
as possibly the most under-appreciated.
Getting to the gallery
The museum is a short walk from the bus-stop (SBS 95 from opposite Buona Vista MRT) at
Lower Kent Ridge Road, with Lecture Theatre 28 and the Science Faculty Co-operative
Bookshop to one's left. Trudge up Science Drive 2, look out for the signs and you should
be at the lift lobby leading up to the museum in 5 minutes.
The entrance to the public gallery is on the 3rd floor, and if you were wondering, yes,
entry is free. The gallery is a blend of taxidermic (and some fibreglass) specimens,
snapshot presentations on past and current research undertaken by its academic team as
well as a plea for biodiversity and its vital role for man's existence itself. Aquarists
will be drawn to a row of aquaria displaying fishes native to Singapore waters. The
piscine wealth of the Central Catchment Area's freshwater swamps can be seen in tanks
housing robust specimens of Trigonostigma heteromorpha (aka the Harlequin
rasbora), Boraras maculata (the pygmy rasbora), Rasboras elegans, Rasbora
einthovenii, Puntius everetti, Puntius binotatus, Puntius lateristriga and Betta
pugnax. One tank is dedicated to the renowned anabantoid Anabas testudineus,
otherwise known as the climbing perch. Another setup features coastal marine species such
as mullet, wrasse, gobies and scorpion fish.
The price of freedom
Freedom for one's unwanted pet may mean death and extinction for an entire species or
ecosystem. Too little stressed in the public arena, the subject of alien invaders and the
havoc they can wreck on native biodiversity is highlighted in a fairly prominent display.
For many, it will probably come across as a surprise that ubiquitous creatures such as
giant snakeheads (toman), red-eared sliders, American bullfrogs, tilapia, suckermouth
catfish, changeable lizards, house crows and mynahs as well as plants like water hyacinth
and Salvinia are imports that have displaced even once common natives. Who now
even knows, much less catches a glimpse of creatures like the magpie robin, green crested
lizard or native pond and box turtles?
Going regional
Other display boards provide snapshots into biodiversity research in Southeast Asia, where
countless species are still being discovered each year. And not only miniscule creatures,
but large mammals such as the large-antlered muntjac and Vu Quang ox - two primitive
ungulates unknown to man until the 1990s and confined to teetering forests in Indochina.
The same region's Mekong basin probably rivals the Amazon in its variety of fish and
aquatic fauna, such as the elusive Mekong dolphin and giant Mekong catfish (Pangasius
gigas) that can reach 3 metres in length. The future of these river denizens,
unfortunately, hangs in the balance as industrialisation and dam-building pollute the
waters and hinder seasonal migrations to breeding grounds. Laos is another ichthyological
treasure house, and as one placard notes, recent expeditions have yield a plethora of new
species, especially members of the diverse Cypriniform order in the genera Gastromyzon
(hill-stream suckers), Rasbora and Gara (algae-eaters). Similar, Borneo and Sumatra
continue to yield surprises, contributing regular depth to the orders Cypriniformes,
Siluriformes (Old World catfishes) and Anabantoide sub-order of Perciformes. Other
ichthyological research projects include a reappraisal of riverine catfish in the
Hemibagrus genus, taxonomy of bettas and peat swamp life.
Life in the peats
Regarded as areas of pestilence fit only to be drained by laymen, peat swamps are in fact
hidden ores of biodiversity, harbouring myriad species of freshwater life that survive
nowhere else, including tiny jewel-like cyprinids, liquorice gouramis, mouth-brooding
bettas and exquisite Cryptocoryne aroids. What an irony that the bulk of interest
in such treasures and their fragile habitat comes from aquarists and researchers from
barren temperate lands! Might not the native residents and authorities be persuaded that
diligent conservation and sustainable management of these disappearing wetlands be more
profitable and worthy an endeavour? Elsewhere, nations have found that draining extensive
swamps ultimately deprive the land of rainwater sponges, causing unregulated river levels,
flooding and drought. Will this impatient region strive to avoid such errors, or will
these costs be written off as the price of "development"?
Nature versus human nature
Finally, considerable effort and space is devoted to the link between biodiversity and
human welfare. Volumes of debate have been produced on the subject (Kinokuniya bookstore
offers a good selection), more often than not in tones of academic admonition. It is
arguable that the world's havens of biodiversity and their inhabitants will prove vital to
man's own survival: as storehouses for new food and medicinal resources; as nurseries for
the seafood we savour; as a biological hedge against the precarious genetic homogeneity
imposed by man on his crops and domestic creatures; as a source of inspiration for future
developments in biomechanics; as reservoirs for carbon that could otherwise heat the earth
and submerge low-lying islands; as floodbreaks, natural water treatment systems and
weather regulators - in short, the sustenance of Homo sapiens as a biological
entity.
The Museum, in showcasing the present and vanished biological wealth of Southeast Asia
as well as such explicit appeals for its preservation, offers a poignant case for a more
thoughtful alternative to wanton exploitation of nature. Modest in scale it may be, the
Museum's public gallery would have served its purpose if a visitor emerges with an inkling
of nature's true infinitude, as well as a sense of its vulnerability. For some, it may
prove to be the start of a personal voyage of discovery. For every individual who departs
from its doors, though, it is hoped that the Museum would have kindled a life-long
attachment to the hope that more will see the intricate cord that bind humanity's fate to
the natural wealth of this world.
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