Singapore

Singapore is an island city state that lost more than ninety-five per cent of its original forest during the nineteenth century and has made the rebuilding of urban nature a matter of state policy. It keeps a fragment of primary rainforest at Bukit Timah, mangroves and marshes at Sungei Buloh, a stopover on the East Asian migration corridor, and a network of parks linked by green corridors that allow wildlife to move between the fragments. The island also holds coral reefs among its southern islands, despite lying beside one of the busiest ports in the world. Species such as the Oriental pied hornbill, absent for decades, have returned thanks to artificial nest programmes and the maturing of the urban tree canopy.