Singapore's contribution to science and biodiversity!

Between 1854 and 1862, British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace came to Singapore multiple times to to study the region’s biodiversity.
He especially liked to collect and made records of birds and insects he encountered, which made his collections some of the oldest records of species native to the island- decades before the first systematic catalogues of Singapore biodiversity.

Wallace’s research in Southeast Asia led him to formulate a theory of evolution by natural selection at the same time as naturalist Charles Darwin, whom with Wallace kept in regular albeit sporadic contact via mail as they shared the same research interests.

http://wallace-online.org/Wallace-Online_Singapore.html

Have you wondered why Singapore lost much of its vegetation??

Apparently, much of Singapore's original forest was lost before 1965. In the early 1800s, more than 99% of the estimated 540sq km was cleared by the British when they established their presence here.

Since then, Singapore has been rebuilding its vegetation and the clearing done previously actually allowed the growing of vegetation to be more strategic.

Ooo... This topic seems so cool. I found this the other day. Do you know that there is this department called, Primary Production Department. It is basically a merger of several divisions namely the Agriculture Division, Veterinary division, Co-operative Division, Fisheries Division and the Rural Division. The department's objective is to to provide a coordinated approach to developing and regulating the local farming and fishing industry. It was formed in 1959.

And during the 60s, many Singaporeans were involved in agricultural activities. There were some 20,000 farms then occupying more than 14,000 hectares of land. However, most farmers and fishermen were poorly educated and they used traditional farming methods.

So the department facilitated in the process of improving the livelihood of the farmers by providing extension services and various schemes to assist the farming industry. For instance education to the farmers were given on matters relating to agriculture, animal husbandry and fisheries. Research and Development in areas such as production methods, breeding techniques, nutrition and disease control, played a major role in improving agriculture and animal husbandry.

Singapore's first Agricultural Show was held in 1965 with the aim of acquainting the urban population with activities of the farmers and fishermen.