1 September 2021STATUS
CompletedPARTNERS AND SPONSORS
National Parks Board (Singapore)
PI: Dr Harvey Neo (LKYCIC, SUTD)
Co-PI: Dr Samuel Chng (LKYCIC, SUTD)
Team: Ms Ariel Tan Jen Li, Mr Li Bayi, Ms Sara Ann Nicholas, Ms Sarah Wong I-Mae, Ms Flora Du Yuting, Ms Rabi’ah Ghazali (LKYCIC, SUTD)
Human-wildlife encounters appear to be on the rise in Singapore. There may be three reasons for this:
- Housing and other infrastructural projects are built ever closer to nature reserves and parks, causing wildlife to forage closer to human habitats.
- Singapore’s desire to become a biophilic ‘City in Nature’ – where nature is interwoven with the urban fabric – has enabled wildlife to thrive in pockets of nature that have not existed before
- Travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have compelled more Singaporeans to look to our own backyard for leisure activities, thereby increasing encounters with wildlife.
Human-wildlife encounters can easily escalate into conflicts, if public apathy towards animals is high while knowledge of animals is low. Yet, the rise in human-wildlife encounters present a golden opportunity for turning such encounters into interactions that are meaningful and sustainable.
Our study seeks to understand how positive human-wildlife interactions can be fostered in a ‘City in Nature’. We wish to understand the kinds of attitudes towards animals that lend themselves to positive interactions; and how these attitudes are shaped by people’s life experiences and knowledge about nature and wildlife.
The first phase of our study involves a population survey. The survey is expected to commence in Q2 2022.
If you’d like to learn more about the study, please write to us at humanwildlife@sutd.edu.sg. We’d love to hear from you!
1 September 2021STATUS
CompletedPARTNERS AND SPONSORS
National Parks Board (Singapore)
Publications
- 16 November 2021: Rifle Range Road to get animal detection system (The Straits Times)
Conferences/Talks
- 4 June 2022: Human Wildlife Coexistence Webinar by Dr Adrian Loo, Dr Harvey Neo and Ms Boopal (organised by GreenSG COLLAB, in conjunction with NParks SustainableFest 2022).
- 16 February 2022: City Pioneers Series Webinar – Where the Wild Things Are: The Human-Animal Nexus in Urban Singapore by Dr Harvey Neo (organised by LKYCIC, SUTD)
- 5 November 2021: Where the Wild Things Are: Locating the Human-Animal Nexus in Urban Singapore by Dr Harvey Neo (organised by NTU)
Survey