Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Bukit Timah Nature Reserve protects 163 hectares of forest at the geographical centre of Singapore, on the slopes and summit of Bukit Timah Hill, the country's highest natural point at about 163 m. It is one of the largest patches of primary lowland rainforest surviving on the island, dominated by hill dipterocarps, a forest type that has all but disappeared from the rest of the territory.

Its history is one of the oldest in conservation in South-East Asia. In 1882 Nathaniel Cantley, superintendent of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, recommended protecting several stands of forest; in 1883 Bukit Timah was declared one of the colony's fourteen forest reserves and was the only one never felled for timber. The Nature Reserves Ordinance of 1951 strengthened its protection, in 1990 it formally became a nature reserve and in 2011 it was designated an ASEAN Heritage Park. Today it is protected by the Parks and Trees Act of 2005 and managed by the National Parks Board.

Together with the neighbouring Central Catchment Nature Reserve it is home to more than 840 species of flowering plant and more than 500 animal species; a single hectare of the reserve has been documented as containing more tree species than the whole of North America. Among its inhabitants are two freshwater crabs found only in Singapore, Johora singaporensis and Irmengardia johnsoni, as well as long-tailed macaques, red-bellied squirrels, mouse-deer and gliding lizards. The building of the BKE expressway in 1985 cut the forest off from the central forest block; in 2013 the Eco-Link@BKE opened, a green corridor 50 m wide that reconnected the two areas and allows wildlife to cross safely.