Ecotax Announcement
Lunchtime talks organised by the NUS Campus Green Committee

All are welcome!
"Marine Life in Singapore: Surprises and Challenges "

- a talk conducted in conjunction with the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore, 18th September 2004

by N. Sivasothi
Coordinator,
International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

Monday, 6th September 2004: 1.00pm - 2.00pm

Lecture Theatre 15
Blk AS 6, Faculty of Law
The National University of Singapore
See campus map

Please register for the talk at by 25 August 2004.  

About the talk
Despite losing most of our mangroves, sea grass beds and coral reefs,  the urban Singapore coastline is still survived by interesting patches of coastal and marine ecosystems, which are home to dugongs, sea stars, octopus, dolphins, hundreds of species of fish, sea snakes and turtles. And species new to science are still discovered.

This remaining marine ecosystem marine life faces several challenges - development, marine trash, poaching and environmental accidents. Plastic trash is a particular curse and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on World Environment Day this year that "Marine trash, mainly plastic, is killing more than a million seabirds and 100,000 mammals and sea turtles each year".

Volunteers with the annual International Coastal Cleanup Singapore removed 6.4 tonnes from our coastline in a single day last year - and almost 90% of this was plastic and almost 60% from land-based sources. Abandoned nets entangled and killed birds, snakes, crabs, horseshoe crabs and fish.

At Kranji mangroves site which NUS volunteers help to clean, 10 tonnes of trash have been removed in the past three years alone!

The Ministry of Environment's Clean Card Singapore 2004 revealed our waste has increased six times from the 70's to the present 7,600 tonnes a day. Can this trend change?

About the speaker
N. Sivasothi, a.k.a. 'Otterman' is the Research Officer at NUS' Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research. The mangroves have been the backdrop to his research, education and conservation activities since the late 80's when he first ventured into mangroves as an NUS undergraduate student.

The problem of marine trash and abandoned drift nets was clearly evident in his surveys so he agreed to coordinate the first mangrove cleanup in 1997 at former research sites in the north-west of Singapore. Since 2001, he been the national coordinator and has tried to increase an awareness of marine life through this programme. He is also the author and co-editor of "A Guide to the Mangroves of Singapore", editor of Habitatnews and coordinator of Toddycats! - the Raffles Museum volunteers.

ALL ARE WELCOME!  

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