UNESCO-appointed panel recommends gardens; Singapore taking more steps to protect site
By Melody Zaccheus, The Sunday Times, 17 May 2015
Extra steps will be taken to ensure that the Botanic Gardens is adequately protected, even as the historic site took a major leap towards being recognised as a World Heritage Site.
By Melody Zaccheus, The Sunday Times, 17 May 2015
Extra steps will be taken to ensure that the Botanic Gardens is adequately protected, even as the historic site took a major leap towards being recognised as a World Heritage Site.
In a report published online just after midnight yesterday, a UNESCO-appointed panel, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), gave its recommendation to the gardens' bid. This is the next-to-last step towards being put on the list. Now it is left to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee to say yes.
The report also detailed how the gardens' conservation efforts and buffer zone could be strengthened, for instance by developing monitoring indicators for development and tourism.
In a joint statement yesterday, the National Parks Board (NParks) and National Heritage Board (NHB) noted that a comprehensive management plan is already in place.
They said there are plans to increase the frequency of inspections of the gardens' historical buildings by a professional engineer from once every five years to once every two years.
They added that the buffer zone around the proposed 49ha heritage site falls under the Urban Redevelopment Authority's height control area, which ensures that no new development will be visible within a 1km radius from the heart of the gardens.
A site evaluation will be conducted as well at the end of next year to evaluate visitor impact, and fences will be installed around some of its heritage trees to reduce excessive trampling.
ICOMOS also noted that while Singapore has well-developed planning and development systems, it lacks mandatory environmental impact assessments in the planning process.
The ICOMOS report has given Singapore's chances of having its first World Heritage Site a massive boost, since it got on the tentative list in December 2012. A recommendation is the best of four possible outcomes from ICOMOS' technical assessment of the 156-year-old site. It means there is a high chance that the UNESCO World Heritage Committee will approve the gardens' nomination when it meets in Bonn, Germany late next month or in early July, as the assessment outcome will have a major bearing on its final decision.
It is unlikely that Singapore will have to respond to the ICOMOS recommendations at the upcoming Bonn meeting since the final decision whether to list the gardens does not hinge on the implementation of these suggestions, said NParks and NHB.
It is unlikely that Singapore will have to respond to the ICOMOS recommendations at the upcoming Bonn meeting since the final decision whether to list the gardens does not hinge on the implementation of these suggestions, said NParks and NHB.
Said Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Lawrence Wong: "This is a very positive step forward for our bid, and it goes to show that in the eyes of international experts, the gardens has a strong case to qualify as a UNESCO World Heritage Site."
After Singapore submitted a nomination dossier justifying its bid in January last year, an ICOMOS technical assessor spent three days in Singapore last September to evaluate the gardens.
If successfully listed, it will join two other UNESCO-listed gardens: The 1759 Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, and the 1545 Orto botanico di Padova in Padua, Italy.
Nature Society president Shawn Lum described the recommendation as an endorsement of Singapore's natural preservation and heritage efforts by the international community. Referring to the bid, heritage conservation expert Johannes Widodo said: "It's a statement from the state of Singapore that we are ready to take this responsibility forward. It's a commitment we are making, to keep the gardens for the sake of mankind."
A World Heritage Site would also boost the Republic's tourism industry. Dr Nigel Taylor, director of the 74ha gardens, expects six million visits a year in 2021, up from 4.4 million now, if the bid is successful.
Said Ngee Ann Polytechnic's senior tourism lecturer Michael Chiam: "Just like any UNESCO site, tourists would... include the gardens as part of their itinerary and it will become another avenue to promote Singapore."
To be on the World Heritage Site list, sites must have outstanding universal value and meet at least one of 10 criteria. The gardens fulfils two, related to historical landscape and its role in the interchange of human values.
Singapore Heritage Society honorary secretary Yeo Kang Shua said the ICOMOS recommendations are constructive. "We can see that they are not only concerned with the protection of the site per se, but also potential external threats to the historic property in the future."
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Panel highlights gardens' role in region's rubber trade
By Melody Zaccheus, The Sunday Times, 17 May 2015
By Melody Zaccheus, The Sunday Times, 17 May 2015
A UNESCO-appointed panel, which recommended that the Singapore Botanic Gardens be listed as a World Heritage Site, praised it as an "exceptional example" of a British tropical colonial botanic garden in South-east Asia.
And it highlighted the pivotal role the gardens played in the rubber trade in the region.
Compared to other such gardens in places such as Hong Kong, Penang and India, Singapore has kept its original features intact, said the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). It is also relatively well-resourced.
The ICOMOS report is a response to the dossier submitted by Singapore in January last year for its bid to have the 156-year-old gardens listed as a World Heritage Site.
After a visit by an ICOMOS assessor last September, Singapore was asked to send in more information on aspects such as the gardens' boundaries, development, and its protection and management plan. These were submitted a month later in October.
In its report, ICOMOS said most of the Republic's justifications to be listed were "adequate", noting that the gardens' main threats were developments or changes in land use, environmental pressures and tourism.
It said that the gardens has a well-defined and well-preserved cultural landscape, including 47 heritage trees and 17 historic landmarks such as Holttum Hall, the Bandstand and the Swan Lake Gazebo.
The gardens also illustrates the interchange of values connected to ideas, knowledge and expertise in tropical and economic botany and horticulture.
For instance, the gardens was where rubber cultivation and extraction were perfected.
The report said that while the 1759 Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England provided the initial rubber seedlings, it was the Singapore Botanic Gardens which "provided the conditions for their planting, mass-multiplication, experimentation, agro-industrial development and eventual distribution" to South-east Asia and beyond.
As such, "by 1920 Malaya was producing half the world's latex harvest". In addition, China's rapidly growing rubber industry in Yunnan province today has its origin in trees supplied from Singapore in 1904.
The report further highlighted how the gardens is home to seven "very old specimens" of African oil palm, and two heritage white gutta percha trees that were planted by the first director, Henry Ridley, in 1897 to protect them from extinction.
Law professor Kevin Tan, the president of ICOMOS Singapore, believes Singapore's "dossier was very well done and cogently argued".
Nature Society president Shawn Lum considers the recommendation a "victory" for Singapore's gardens and an affirmation of the people who first set up the gardens more than a century ago.
ICOMOS said that the gardens has played an integral role in the social history of Singapore, providing a backdrop for the lives of its residents for a continued sense of place and identity.
Gardens' director Nigel Taylor said this could be traced back to the 19th century, when Singapore was a "Wild West town", and its jungles rife with unruly Chinese headmen, snakes, tigers and disease.
"So families went to the Botanic Gardens where respectable families introduced boys to girls for arranged marriages and it was where families went to relax," he said.