Of cutting trees and spying eagles: How to know nature better

Young Singaporeans should be able to name 10 native species of plants, birds and marine creatures by age 12.

- Chua Mui Hoong

The first time I saw people cut "my" trees, my heart seized up in agony.

It was 2000, and I was living in Bishan, in a five-room Housing Board flat with a direct view of the park. I loved the row of rain trees in front of my study window. I would sit for hours, watching the brahminy kite circle at noon, the white-bellied sea-eagle catch the thermal lift at dusk, and spy the cerulean blue of the white-collared kingfisher's wing as it flitted near the canal.

Then, one morning, I woke up to screeching sounds. I saw people around the trees, with machines and saws and ropes, cutting down the trees. I felt such anguish, and such anger. They were innocent trees - why were they being felled? I wanted to run down to wrap my arms around them to protect them from such destruction. I finally understood tree-huggers.

Later, I found out the trees were being trimmed, but not all were destroyed. Some would be replanted, as part of the rejuvenation of the park. Today, the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park has many mature trees intact, with newly planted shrubs along the rivulets of the Kallang River that meander through the park. But that weekend, I could not stay in the flat. I left and returned past sunset, when it was too dark to see the barren field outside my window.

I would stay in that flat another two years, but my heart left that afternoon. Barely two weeks after my trees were felled, I put the deposit down to buy another apartment that promised a green view. When it was completed, I moved in and stayed 10 years.

I've always liked trees - since my childhood when my parents ran a hawker stall in a food centre beside a small park that housed a huge angsana tree my brother would climb. I was about five when my parents started their char kway teow stall at the centre, too young to clamber up its stout branches, but old enough to enjoy playing with my dolls, sitting on a mat under the shade.