Singapore’s Green Corridor becomes a space for nature and events
Singapore's Green Corridor, a 24 kilometre long nature reserve, cuts through some of the island nation’s priciest real estate and provides an important area of green space in the densely populated city.
Known among residents as the Green Corridor, the new park takes its inspiration from the High Line in New York and the Promenade Plantée in Paris, repurposing land that had once been used for a railway to create an unlikely nature preserve in the urban heart of the city.
Echoing the grass-roots movement that saved New York’s High Line, the Green Corridor may not have been possible were it not for the efforts of conservation and heritage-minded residents who led a campaign to persuade the Singaporean Government to leave it untouched.
Running the entire length of Singapore, from the old Tanjong Pagar Rail Station in the south to the border of Malaysia in the north, the old railway line’s complex history partly explains why the land stayed out of developers’ hands so long. Built during British colonial rule in the early 1900s to ferry tin and rubber from the Malay Peninsula to the Singapore port, the railway remained under Malaysian control as part of the separation agreement that came with the 1965 division of Singapore and Malaysia. It wasn’t until 2010 that the countries finalised a land swap in which the rail corridor was transferred back to Singapore.
That was when a group called the Nature Society (Singapore) stepped in with a proposal to preserve the land, citing New York and Paris as examples of how other cities made use of abandoned railway lines.
Nature Society Vice President Leong Kwok Peng, who spearheaded the drive to create the nature preserve, explains “we were concerned because traditionally when Singapore takes over a piece of land, the first thing they want to do is parcel it out to developers.”
A lively social media campaign followed with a Green Corridor website, thegreencorridor.org, and a Facebook page aimed at galvanising public support behind the project. Soon, residents were sharing their own photos, videos and downloadable maps of the verdant and untamed corridor online.
Eugene Tay, an environmental activist who started the campaign and organised a series of public walks on the old railway line that drew some 600 curious residents, adds “we’re losing our natural spaces, and our shared memories are being erased quite rapidly, so it’s important to have a place where we can remember the past.”
The Singapore Government proved receptive to the idea and agreed to preserve the Rail Corridor, as it calls the green space, in its entirety. After the tracks were removed (they had to be returned to Malaysia as part of the land-swap agreement), the trail was opened to the public in early 2012 and is now a popular spot on weekends for joggers, bikers, nature photographers and dog walkers.
The trail itself, now just a dirt track fringed by towering rain trees, wild bamboo and banana plants, may receive a face-lift in coming years, too. The Singapore Government is soliciting ideas from the public on how the corridor could be upgraded to make it more visitor-friendly. There are currently no toilets or rest areas and few signposts, and some cyclists and joggers would like to see it paved.
Last year, the inaugural Green Corridor Run drew 6,000 participants along a 10.5 kilometre stretch of the nature preserve.
Its second edition, to be held on 18th May, is open to all, from serious runners to nature lovers. However, the number of entrants is limited.
Click here to visit the Green Corridor website.
Click here to visit the Green Corridor Run website.
30th June 2012 - 10,000 PEOPLE VISIT GARDENS BY THE BAY IN FIRST 12 HOURS
6th January 2012 - SINGAPORE OPENS LABRADOR NATURE & COASTAL WALK
9th February 2011 - TRANSFORMING SINGAPORE’S TOURISM AND LEISURE LANDSCAPE
30th November 2010 - SINGAPORE EXPECTS RECORD 12 MILLION VISITORS THIS YEAR
15th October 2009 - ‘SUPERTREES’ FOR SINGAPORE GARDEN PROJECT
