Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/157063
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dc.contributor.authorPowell, Miles Alexanderen_US
dc.date.accessioned2022-05-02T05:10:37Z-
dc.date.available2022-05-02T05:10:37Z-
dc.date.issued2021-
dc.identifier.citationPowell, M. A. (2021). Singapore’s lost coast: land reclamation, national development and the erasure of human and ecological communities, 1822–present. Environment and History, 27(4), 635-663. https://dx.doi.org/10.3197/096734019X15631846928710en_US
dc.identifier.issn0967-3407en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10356/157063-
dc.description.abstractBeginning during the colonial period, and greatly accelerating following inde-pendence in 1965, Singapore has used land reclamation to increase its national domain by nearly 25 per cent. The construction of new land was a key com-ponent of the nation’s celebrated rise from ‘third world’ to ‘first world’ in the postcolonial period. But the economic benefits of remaking Singapore’s coast-line came at significant ecological and social costs. Nearly all of the original shore, and its attendant mangrove forests and natural beaches, were lost. So too were two-thirds of Singapore’s coral reefs. While carrying out this reclama-tion, the state also erased a number of sites at which people made a living from the sea, including indigenous communities on the outer islands, age-old fishing villages, kelongs (large, traditional offshore fishing platforms) and prawn farms. The history of land construction in Singapore offers a number of important insights concerning the relationship between humans and our environments. First, it reveals how the tensions between an ideal situation (a city or state’s relationship to other places) and a less than optimum site (its physical envi-ronment), when combined with a forceful, proactive government, can bring about immense environmental transformations. Related to that, this case sheds light on the ways in which governments – especially in developing nations – can use transformation of terrestrial and marine environments, in the name of progress, as a means of expanding and legitimating their authority. This history also reveals a perhaps unforeseen consequence of bulldozing and burying sites at which humans derived their livelihood from living oceanic resources: the loss of a cultural connection to the sea, based on knowing nature through work. Finally, this history raises the question of how environmental advocates can pursue conservation in a setting like Singapore’s shores, which we can no longer consider pristine or natural. That is to say, the ongoing efforts of environmentalists to protect flora and fauna in Singapore’s waters speak to the necessity of, and challenges presented by, preserving hybrid (neither entirely natural nor entirely artificial) marine environments.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipMinistry of Education (MOE)en_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.relationM4011757en_US
dc.relation.ispartofEnvironment and Historyen_US
dc.rights© 2021 The White Horse Press. All rights reserved. This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted following peer review for publication in Environment and History, 27(4), 635-663.en_US
dc.subjectHumanities::Historyen_US
dc.titleSingapore’s lost coast: land reclamation, national development and the erasure of human and ecological communities, 1822–presenten_US
dc.typeJournal Articleen
dc.contributor.schoolSchool of Humanitiesen_US
dc.identifier.doi10.3197/096734019X15631846928710-
dc.description.versionSubmitted/Accepted versionen_US
dc.identifier.scopus2-s2.0-85116385783-
dc.identifier.issue4en_US
dc.identifier.volume27en_US
dc.identifier.spage635en_US
dc.identifier.epage663en_US
dc.subject.keywordsAnthropoceneen_US
dc.subject.keywordsSingaporeen_US
dc.description.acknowledgementThis research was funded in part by an MOE Tier 1 Grant (M4011757).en_US
item.fulltextWith Fulltext-
item.grantfulltextopen-
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