ABSTRACT
After Singapore was colonized by the British colony in 1819, Teochew planters occupied the river estuaries to cultivate gambier and pepper before expanding into the northern and western regions. They practiced shifting cultivation techniques where primary forests were eliminated in favor of crops. At the same time, the timber/charcoal-intensive activities of trees in gambier-producing factories accelerated the elimination of primary forests and swamplands. After the Suez Canal came into operation in 1869, gambier exports grew with European and American industrial demand and Singapore became the global trading hub for gambier. Eventually, even after the gambier and pepper cultivation industries were phased out, their activities had already caused climate change through the deforestation of Singapore for crop cultivation. In 1873, widespread deforestation was cited as the reason for a drought and, by the mid-19th century, colonial officials started to connect climate changes with massive deforestation. By the 20th century, some 90% of Singapore’s primary forest cover had been lost and Singapore experienced the ‘urban heat island effect’. The colonial authorities put in place defensive systems against climate change. Singapore’s governor forbade the continued destruction of forests on the summit of hills which mitigates erosion, siltation and floods. The Forest Department planted trees along the forest edges as fire breaks to manage forest fires due to higher temperatures. By end-19th century, colonial authorities started forestry programs to bring about sustainability in the use of natural resources, and gazetting interior Sembawang, Mandai, Nee Soon Village, Bukit Panjang, and Ang Mo Kio as water reserves.
Keywords: gambier, Singapore, climate change, pepper, British
BACKGROUND
The founder of modern Singapore Sir Stamford Raffles and the second Resident of Singapore William Farquhar wanted to transform Singapore into a spice island with commercial spice plantations and other cash crops for trade (Chia, 2021). After Singapore (formerly known by its older names like Singapura or Temasek) became a British colony in 1819, large primary forest areas were eliminated for cash crops like gambier and pepper, resulting in the mass extinction of native flora and fauna (Chia, 2021).
Communicating to Raffles’ Acting Secretary L. Nelson Hull in 1822, Resident and Commandant of Singapore William Farquhar indicated that Temenggong Abdul Rahman (the then local leader of Singapore) gave “various Malays and Chinese” permits to clear lands for plantation cultivation on top of the 20 pre-existing Gambier plantations (permitted by the pre-colonial Malay Temenggong authorities) before British arrival in 1819 (Chia, 2021). The outputs of these 20 plantations were mostly exported to China (Thulaja, 2019).
In 1822, Raffles and Danish surgeon and naturalist Nathaniel Wallich (former Superintendent of the Royal Gardens in Calcutta India) constructed a botanical garden on Government Hill (contemporary Fort Canning Hill) for the “experimental cultivation of the indigenous plants of Singapore” like nutmeg and cloves (Chia, 2021). In 1836, a group of (mostly) European planter-hobbyists began to try cultivating crops in Singapore (Thulaja, 2019). While different crops were experimented with little success, pepper and gambier plantations succeeded and reached a golden era of cultivation in the 1840s (Schelander, 1998). [The crops that failed included nutmegs (about 25,000 trees that were blight-diseased); coconuts (50,000 trees over 660 acres of land but overplanting wiped out the sandy coastal forests that needed to sustain them), rubber (at least 12,000 acres but its land was cleared for a naval base), etc. (Pwee, 2021).
British surgeon Robert Little noted in his The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia essay in 1848: “The rain falling here in showers throughout the year, and not confined to one season, gives a perpetual verdure to vegetation, cools the surface of the earth” (Chia, 2021). The Malayan hot and humid tropical weather was suitable for spice cultivation which the British colonizers wanted to tap into to compete with the Dutch spice colony of Moluccas (Maluku) (Chia, 2021).
European and Chinese residents cultivated nutmeg but plant diseases in the 1850s and 1860s killed the crops and finally pepper and gambier cultivations were found to be more suitable for the island’s condition though this destroyed primary forests (Chia, 2021). Pepper was planted alongside gambier for economic viability as plantation laborers utilized the by-products of boiling gambier leaves as fertilizers for pepper plants which crept up the gambier plants as their vines matured (Chia, 2021).
British transformation of Singapore as a free port made it a hub for regional gambier cultivation and trading activities, outcompeting Dutch Riau which faced Chinese planters’ reactions against increasing Dutch taxes (Chia, 2021). Some historians indicated the original source of gambier cultivation was probably Riau, which was practiced there even before the Johorean (and certainly Singaporean) planters started dabbling with this plant (Lew, 2021, p. vi). But Dutch taxation policies were disadvantaging the Riau gambier industry, in addition to ongoing clan wars between Chinese planters hurting the industry.
In the late 18th century, the Teochew (Chaozhou) planters who escaped from the Chinese clan wars on the Riau islands occupied the isolated river estuaries in Singapore and cultivated gambier and pepper together with their Malay planter neighbors (Chia, 2021). The Chinese planters focused on transforming the lands in the northern and western regions of Singapore for gambier cultivation (Thulaja, 2019). The former Riau-based Teochew planters migrated their shifting cultivation techniques to Singapore, where primary forests were eliminated in favor of crops and, when the soil was depleted of nutrients typically in the 15th year of cultivation, along with the exhaustion of proximate timber/firewood supplies, the farmers then relocated to new lands (Chia, 2021).
GAMBIER AND PEPPER PRODUCTION
Gambier is a resinous material that is utilized for weaving (Lew, 2021, p. vi), tanning and dyeing in the British industrial economy which served as a big market for the crop in the 1830s (Schelander, 1998). Gambier can be used for dyeing cotton, wool, silk, and tan calf leather and kip skins (Thulaja, 2019). In the Chinese community, gambier is typically chewed with betelnut (Thulaja, 2019). For the Malays, they use gambier to treat burns, scurf, cure diarrhea, treat dysentery, as a gargle/lozenge for sore throats, and as a panacea for sciatica and lumbago (Thulaja, 2019).
The timber/charcoal-intensive activities of gambier-producing factories accelerated the elimination of dipterocarp primary forests (defined as lowland rainforest on dry land) and freshwater swampland forests (Chia, 2021). Rubber plantations host small bangsals (Malay word for a “shed” or “shelter” for workers or kilns in cultivated areas) (Chia, 2021). The bangsal facilities normally consume about 2,500 pounds of timber daily for operating pepper kilns and boiling gambier and they doubled up as workers’ accommodation and gambier preparation as well (Chia, 2021).
In the 1830s, the gambier market shifted from Riau to Singapore and trade tariffs on gambier were eliminated by the British, resulting in the planters’ elimination of large areas of primary forest lands and the emergence of 400 pepper and gambier plantations across the island by the 1840s, and eventually 24,220 acres of gambier plantation in the 1850s (Chia, 2021). Nearer the end of the 1840s, the industry grew to 600 gambier and pepper plantations hiring about 6,000 Chinese workers (Thulaja, 2019). Cultivated pepper expanded to 2,614 acres in the 1850s and, by 1855, Singapore had about 12.5 million gambier trees and 1.5 million pepper vines in over 540 recorded plantations (27 times more than the 20 plantations three decades before) (Chia, 2021).
At this peak, gambier probably became Singapore’s most important product that exported to the British (Lew, 2021). After the Suez Canal came into operation in 1869, gambier export volume peaked with strong European and American industrial demand and Riau and Johore became gambier plantations for the world while Singapore became the main trading hub (Lew, 2021, p. vi). Singapore River became the global trading hub for gambier (Lew, 2021, p. vii). Therefore, some historians associate the peak of gambier trade/cultivation in Singapore with the opening of Suez Canal (Lew, 2021, p. vi).
After the 1840s, soil depletion caused plantation owners to give up their cultivated lands and new forest lands with fertile soil made way for continued cultivation, eventually destroying most of the forested estate while old obsolete plantations were unfarmable, and this caused the inevitable obsolescence of the plantations to Singapore’s economy (Schelander, 1998). Eventually, after the gambier and pepper cultivation industries were phased out, plantation owners gave up their lands and sought work in the urban town areas (Schelander, 1998) or relocated other places in the Malay peninsula (like Johore) to continue as cultivators (Thulaja, 2019). Unlike Singapore, the Johorean gambier industry thrived even after it declined in Singapore with urbanization and modernization (Lew, 2021, p. vii).
Climate change can also be seen through historical lens, which some have argued were the result of deforestation in Singapore 200 years ago with large scale combustion of primary forest to clear land for crop cultivation in 19th-century Singapore (Chia, 2021). In 1873, widespread deforestation was cited as the reason for a drought that resulted in dried wells and lack of water from the Impounding Reservoir (contemporary MacRitchie Reservoir) on Thomson Road that serves as the city’s main potable water source built in 1867 (Chia, 2021). This was drought due to deforestation as the effect of water resource depletion caused by deforestation. The historical 19th century interpretation by scientists in Europe and America associated widespread forest clearance for agriculture with climatic issues like lower rainfall and higher water evaporation rates, especially the latter due to the lack of tree cover (Chia, 2021). The impoverished in the city of Singapore turned to consuming dirty canal water that spread cholera that eliminated 448 residents or more in 1873 (Chia, 2021).
By the mid-19th century, colonial officials in the Straits Settlements (which includes Singapore) started to connect climate changes with massive deforestation, and John Turnbull Thomson (Government Surveyor of the Straits Settlements)’s research of Singaporean temperatures recorded by the East India Company officers indicated that temperature had risen to the tune of 2.48 °F (1.38 °C) from the early 1820s to 1840s (Chia, 2021). By the turn of the 20th century, some 90 percent of Singapore’s primary forest cover had been lost, and Thomson opined that the temperature increase was attributable to “the country within 3 miles of the town being now clear of the jungle and cultivated, which formerly was covered with primeval forest” (Chia, 2021).
In his 1885 meteorological report, Thomas Irvine Rowell (Principal Civil Medical Officer of the Straits Settlements) indicated a “long drought” in March 1885, a “somewhat dry” August 1885 and an “unusually dry” October 1885 was with “little doubt” caused by “forest desiccation” (an older technical term for “destruction” – influenced rainfall) (Chia, 2021). In contemporary research, this is now known as the ‘urban heat island effect’, a factor of climate change found in cities with scant greenery experiencing warmer temperatures than forested countryside because of heat accumulation in concrete pavements and buildings (Chia, 2021).
CONCLUDING REMARKS: COLONIAL-ERA MITIGATION EFFORTS
The colonial authorities began to gradually put in place defensive systems against climate change. The editor of The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia James Richardson Logan observed that Singapore’s governor had forbidden “the further destruction of forest on the summit of hills” which mitigates erosion, siltation and famines caused by floods (Chia, 2021). The Forest Department planted Syzygium grande (sea apple) and Gluta rengas trees along the forest edges as fire breaks to manage forest fires due to higher temperatures (Chia, 2021).
By end-19th century, colonial authorities fought climatic changes by starting forestry programs in the 1880s/1890s to bring about sustainability in the use of natural resources, gazetting interior Sembawang, Mandai, Chan Chu Kang (now known as Nee Soon Village), Bukit Panjang and Ang Mo Kio as reserves to conserve streams and water supplies like the Impounding Reservoir (Chia, 2021).
Today, gambier crops cultivation in Singapore have ended but its cultivation continues on a large scale in Indonesia. Therefore, we can learn much from the Indonesian experience in mitigating climate change. In terms of recent information of the impact of climate change on gambier cultivation, contemporary Indonesian gambier farmers are recycling and practicing the application of gambier compost (especially the leaves and residue matter) to their gambier crops for soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration, fertilizer as well as erosion preventer (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). Carbon sequestration reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the goal of reducing global climate change (US Geological Survey, US Department of the Interior, 2024).
In the case of Gambier-growing Indonesian Lansano region, the soil had fine texture in the form of silty clay with low soil organic carbon (SOC) to bind the soil for aggregate stability (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, p. 5). This results in high density soil bound mainly by clay with lower water permeability and is vulnerable to soil erosion caused by running surface water, especially in an open farmland with high tropical rainfall (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, p. 5). The soil organic carbon content in forestry land will decline after deforestation for growing crops like Gambier, if farmers do not apply compost or crop residues to the land and prevent soil erosion by growing cover crops especially in the tropical climate with high temperature and high Rainfall. The lands which grow Gambier after deforestation have accumulated soil organic carbon is because the farmers have applied the compost of recycled gambier leaves and residues to the soils which is a climate smart and sustainable practice for maintaining soil health and soil productivity. The soil erosion occurred in the said lands is due to the high rainfall and bare land in between the Gambier plants without any cover crops.
Soil erosion is devastating for gambier farmers because the crops are planted and cultivated on sloping lands (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). Therefore, farmers were advised to recycle and incorporate Gambier plant organic residue onto the soil to keep the level of soil organic carbon (SOC) stable in the soil (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6).
Additionally, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) under gambier cultivation in the sloping areas of a humid tropical landscape like Indonesia’s Gambier-growing Lansano region has high levels of soil bulk density (BD, defined as dry soil mass per unit volume) due to low organic carbon (OC) content in silty clay soil (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). The suggested solution to mitigate this is to regularly re-introduce extracted gambier leaves as organic matter (OM) back to the soil to boost the soil's physical properties to combat environmental degradation and natural disasters (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). High organic carbon in a soil can improve the soil physical (more aggregates, better aeration, higher water holding capacity, lower bulk density), chemical (higher nutrient holding capacity, higher nutrient contents, higher buffering capacity), and biological properties (more balanced and active microbiota) and is an index of soil health and productivity. Soil organic carbon is the nutrient source of soil microbes and thus can enhance their growth, and the soil microbes together with the decomposed soil organic matter and soil mineral particles will form soil aggregates and thus create more aeration space and reduce soil bulk density which would create a better environment for root growth.
REFERENCES
Chia, Jie Lin. Deforestation in 19th-century Singapore. National Library Board Biblioasia 1 April 2021. Retrieved from https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-17/issue-1/apr-jun-2021/deforestation/
Lew, Siew Boon. Gambier Trade, Chinese Community and the Making of Modern Johor, 1784-1917. National University of Singapore (NUS) Libraries Scholar Bank 6 Dec 2021. Retrieved from https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/bitstreams/fde7458f-21ae-4671-a016-f274e5...
Pwee, Timothy. From Gambier to Pepper: Plantation Agriculture in Singapore. National Library Singapore biblioasia 1 April 2021. Retrieved from https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-17/issue-1/apr-jun-2021/agriculture/
Schelander, Bjorn. Singapore A History of the Lion City. University of Manoa Scholar Space Hawaii USA Center for Southeast Asian Studies School of Hawaiian, Asian and Pacific University of Hawai'i. 1998. Retrieved from https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/c7213a3...
Thulaja, Naidu Ratnala, Gambier. National Library Board Singapore Infopedia October 2019. Retrieved from https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=ab23f39e-9874-4ff8-b8... Geological Survey (USGS) US Department of the Interior. What is carbon sequestration? USGS 23 December 2024. Retrieved from https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/what-carbon-sequestration#:~:text=Carbon%20seq....
Yamin, Kafil. Gambier trees may yield Indonesia's first antibiotic. Eco-business 4 May 2016. Retrieved from https://www.eco-business.com/id/news/gambier-trees-may-yield-indonesias-first-antibiotic/
Yulnafatmawita, L. Maira, H.N.P.Dennico and ZA Haris. Organic carbon sequestration at gambier (Uncaria gambier L.) cultivation in sloping area under wet tropical region. IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science 2018. Retrieved from chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/583/1/012009/pdf
Singapore’s Gambier (and Pepper) Cultivation and a Historical Lesson in Climate Change
ABSTRACT
After Singapore was colonized by the British colony in 1819, Teochew planters occupied the river estuaries to cultivate gambier and pepper before expanding into the northern and western regions. They practiced shifting cultivation techniques where primary forests were eliminated in favor of crops. At the same time, the timber/charcoal-intensive activities of trees in gambier-producing factories accelerated the elimination of primary forests and swamplands. After the Suez Canal came into operation in 1869, gambier exports grew with European and American industrial demand and Singapore became the global trading hub for gambier. Eventually, even after the gambier and pepper cultivation industries were phased out, their activities had already caused climate change through the deforestation of Singapore for crop cultivation. In 1873, widespread deforestation was cited as the reason for a drought and, by the mid-19th century, colonial officials started to connect climate changes with massive deforestation. By the 20th century, some 90% of Singapore’s primary forest cover had been lost and Singapore experienced the ‘urban heat island effect’. The colonial authorities put in place defensive systems against climate change. Singapore’s governor forbade the continued destruction of forests on the summit of hills which mitigates erosion, siltation and floods. The Forest Department planted trees along the forest edges as fire breaks to manage forest fires due to higher temperatures. By end-19th century, colonial authorities started forestry programs to bring about sustainability in the use of natural resources, and gazetting interior Sembawang, Mandai, Nee Soon Village, Bukit Panjang, and Ang Mo Kio as water reserves.
Keywords: gambier, Singapore, climate change, pepper, British
BACKGROUND
The founder of modern Singapore Sir Stamford Raffles and the second Resident of Singapore William Farquhar wanted to transform Singapore into a spice island with commercial spice plantations and other cash crops for trade (Chia, 2021). After Singapore (formerly known by its older names like Singapura or Temasek) became a British colony in 1819, large primary forest areas were eliminated for cash crops like gambier and pepper, resulting in the mass extinction of native flora and fauna (Chia, 2021).
Communicating to Raffles’ Acting Secretary L. Nelson Hull in 1822, Resident and Commandant of Singapore William Farquhar indicated that Temenggong Abdul Rahman (the then local leader of Singapore) gave “various Malays and Chinese” permits to clear lands for plantation cultivation on top of the 20 pre-existing Gambier plantations (permitted by the pre-colonial Malay Temenggong authorities) before British arrival in 1819 (Chia, 2021). The outputs of these 20 plantations were mostly exported to China (Thulaja, 2019).
In 1822, Raffles and Danish surgeon and naturalist Nathaniel Wallich (former Superintendent of the Royal Gardens in Calcutta India) constructed a botanical garden on Government Hill (contemporary Fort Canning Hill) for the “experimental cultivation of the indigenous plants of Singapore” like nutmeg and cloves (Chia, 2021). In 1836, a group of (mostly) European planter-hobbyists began to try cultivating crops in Singapore (Thulaja, 2019). While different crops were experimented with little success, pepper and gambier plantations succeeded and reached a golden era of cultivation in the 1840s (Schelander, 1998). [The crops that failed included nutmegs (about 25,000 trees that were blight-diseased); coconuts (50,000 trees over 660 acres of land but overplanting wiped out the sandy coastal forests that needed to sustain them), rubber (at least 12,000 acres but its land was cleared for a naval base), etc. (Pwee, 2021).
British surgeon Robert Little noted in his The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia essay in 1848: “The rain falling here in showers throughout the year, and not confined to one season, gives a perpetual verdure to vegetation, cools the surface of the earth” (Chia, 2021). The Malayan hot and humid tropical weather was suitable for spice cultivation which the British colonizers wanted to tap into to compete with the Dutch spice colony of Moluccas (Maluku) (Chia, 2021).
European and Chinese residents cultivated nutmeg but plant diseases in the 1850s and 1860s killed the crops and finally pepper and gambier cultivations were found to be more suitable for the island’s condition though this destroyed primary forests (Chia, 2021). Pepper was planted alongside gambier for economic viability as plantation laborers utilized the by-products of boiling gambier leaves as fertilizers for pepper plants which crept up the gambier plants as their vines matured (Chia, 2021).
British transformation of Singapore as a free port made it a hub for regional gambier cultivation and trading activities, outcompeting Dutch Riau which faced Chinese planters’ reactions against increasing Dutch taxes (Chia, 2021). Some historians indicated the original source of gambier cultivation was probably Riau, which was practiced there even before the Johorean (and certainly Singaporean) planters started dabbling with this plant (Lew, 2021, p. vi). But Dutch taxation policies were disadvantaging the Riau gambier industry, in addition to ongoing clan wars between Chinese planters hurting the industry.
In the late 18th century, the Teochew (Chaozhou) planters who escaped from the Chinese clan wars on the Riau islands occupied the isolated river estuaries in Singapore and cultivated gambier and pepper together with their Malay planter neighbors (Chia, 2021). The Chinese planters focused on transforming the lands in the northern and western regions of Singapore for gambier cultivation (Thulaja, 2019). The former Riau-based Teochew planters migrated their shifting cultivation techniques to Singapore, where primary forests were eliminated in favor of crops and, when the soil was depleted of nutrients typically in the 15th year of cultivation, along with the exhaustion of proximate timber/firewood supplies, the farmers then relocated to new lands (Chia, 2021).
GAMBIER AND PEPPER PRODUCTION
Gambier is a resinous material that is utilized for weaving (Lew, 2021, p. vi), tanning and dyeing in the British industrial economy which served as a big market for the crop in the 1830s (Schelander, 1998). Gambier can be used for dyeing cotton, wool, silk, and tan calf leather and kip skins (Thulaja, 2019). In the Chinese community, gambier is typically chewed with betelnut (Thulaja, 2019). For the Malays, they use gambier to treat burns, scurf, cure diarrhea, treat dysentery, as a gargle/lozenge for sore throats, and as a panacea for sciatica and lumbago (Thulaja, 2019).
The timber/charcoal-intensive activities of gambier-producing factories accelerated the elimination of dipterocarp primary forests (defined as lowland rainforest on dry land) and freshwater swampland forests (Chia, 2021). Rubber plantations host small bangsals (Malay word for a “shed” or “shelter” for workers or kilns in cultivated areas) (Chia, 2021). The bangsal facilities normally consume about 2,500 pounds of timber daily for operating pepper kilns and boiling gambier and they doubled up as workers’ accommodation and gambier preparation as well (Chia, 2021).
In the 1830s, the gambier market shifted from Riau to Singapore and trade tariffs on gambier were eliminated by the British, resulting in the planters’ elimination of large areas of primary forest lands and the emergence of 400 pepper and gambier plantations across the island by the 1840s, and eventually 24,220 acres of gambier plantation in the 1850s (Chia, 2021). Nearer the end of the 1840s, the industry grew to 600 gambier and pepper plantations hiring about 6,000 Chinese workers (Thulaja, 2019). Cultivated pepper expanded to 2,614 acres in the 1850s and, by 1855, Singapore had about 12.5 million gambier trees and 1.5 million pepper vines in over 540 recorded plantations (27 times more than the 20 plantations three decades before) (Chia, 2021).
At this peak, gambier probably became Singapore’s most important product that exported to the British (Lew, 2021). After the Suez Canal came into operation in 1869, gambier export volume peaked with strong European and American industrial demand and Riau and Johore became gambier plantations for the world while Singapore became the main trading hub (Lew, 2021, p. vi). Singapore River became the global trading hub for gambier (Lew, 2021, p. vii). Therefore, some historians associate the peak of gambier trade/cultivation in Singapore with the opening of Suez Canal (Lew, 2021, p. vi).
After the 1840s, soil depletion caused plantation owners to give up their cultivated lands and new forest lands with fertile soil made way for continued cultivation, eventually destroying most of the forested estate while old obsolete plantations were unfarmable, and this caused the inevitable obsolescence of the plantations to Singapore’s economy (Schelander, 1998). Eventually, after the gambier and pepper cultivation industries were phased out, plantation owners gave up their lands and sought work in the urban town areas (Schelander, 1998) or relocated other places in the Malay peninsula (like Johore) to continue as cultivators (Thulaja, 2019). Unlike Singapore, the Johorean gambier industry thrived even after it declined in Singapore with urbanization and modernization (Lew, 2021, p. vii).
Climate change can also be seen through historical lens, which some have argued were the result of deforestation in Singapore 200 years ago with large scale combustion of primary forest to clear land for crop cultivation in 19th-century Singapore (Chia, 2021). In 1873, widespread deforestation was cited as the reason for a drought that resulted in dried wells and lack of water from the Impounding Reservoir (contemporary MacRitchie Reservoir) on Thomson Road that serves as the city’s main potable water source built in 1867 (Chia, 2021). This was drought due to deforestation as the effect of water resource depletion caused by deforestation. The historical 19th century interpretation by scientists in Europe and America associated widespread forest clearance for agriculture with climatic issues like lower rainfall and higher water evaporation rates, especially the latter due to the lack of tree cover (Chia, 2021). The impoverished in the city of Singapore turned to consuming dirty canal water that spread cholera that eliminated 448 residents or more in 1873 (Chia, 2021).
By the mid-19th century, colonial officials in the Straits Settlements (which includes Singapore) started to connect climate changes with massive deforestation, and John Turnbull Thomson (Government Surveyor of the Straits Settlements)’s research of Singaporean temperatures recorded by the East India Company officers indicated that temperature had risen to the tune of 2.48 °F (1.38 °C) from the early 1820s to 1840s (Chia, 2021). By the turn of the 20th century, some 90 percent of Singapore’s primary forest cover had been lost, and Thomson opined that the temperature increase was attributable to “the country within 3 miles of the town being now clear of the jungle and cultivated, which formerly was covered with primeval forest” (Chia, 2021).
In his 1885 meteorological report, Thomas Irvine Rowell (Principal Civil Medical Officer of the Straits Settlements) indicated a “long drought” in March 1885, a “somewhat dry” August 1885 and an “unusually dry” October 1885 was with “little doubt” caused by “forest desiccation” (an older technical term for “destruction” – influenced rainfall) (Chia, 2021). In contemporary research, this is now known as the ‘urban heat island effect’, a factor of climate change found in cities with scant greenery experiencing warmer temperatures than forested countryside because of heat accumulation in concrete pavements and buildings (Chia, 2021).
CONCLUDING REMARKS: COLONIAL-ERA MITIGATION EFFORTS
The colonial authorities began to gradually put in place defensive systems against climate change. The editor of The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia James Richardson Logan observed that Singapore’s governor had forbidden “the further destruction of forest on the summit of hills” which mitigates erosion, siltation and famines caused by floods (Chia, 2021). The Forest Department planted Syzygium grande (sea apple) and Gluta rengas trees along the forest edges as fire breaks to manage forest fires due to higher temperatures (Chia, 2021).
By end-19th century, colonial authorities fought climatic changes by starting forestry programs in the 1880s/1890s to bring about sustainability in the use of natural resources, gazetting interior Sembawang, Mandai, Chan Chu Kang (now known as Nee Soon Village), Bukit Panjang and Ang Mo Kio as reserves to conserve streams and water supplies like the Impounding Reservoir (Chia, 2021).
Today, gambier crops cultivation in Singapore have ended but its cultivation continues on a large scale in Indonesia. Therefore, we can learn much from the Indonesian experience in mitigating climate change. In terms of recent information of the impact of climate change on gambier cultivation, contemporary Indonesian gambier farmers are recycling and practicing the application of gambier compost (especially the leaves and residue matter) to their gambier crops for soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration, fertilizer as well as erosion preventer (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). Carbon sequestration reduces the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the goal of reducing global climate change (US Geological Survey, US Department of the Interior, 2024).
In the case of Gambier-growing Indonesian Lansano region, the soil had fine texture in the form of silty clay with low soil organic carbon (SOC) to bind the soil for aggregate stability (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, p. 5). This results in high density soil bound mainly by clay with lower water permeability and is vulnerable to soil erosion caused by running surface water, especially in an open farmland with high tropical rainfall (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, p. 5). The soil organic carbon content in forestry land will decline after deforestation for growing crops like Gambier, if farmers do not apply compost or crop residues to the land and prevent soil erosion by growing cover crops especially in the tropical climate with high temperature and high Rainfall. The lands which grow Gambier after deforestation have accumulated soil organic carbon is because the farmers have applied the compost of recycled gambier leaves and residues to the soils which is a climate smart and sustainable practice for maintaining soil health and soil productivity. The soil erosion occurred in the said lands is due to the high rainfall and bare land in between the Gambier plants without any cover crops.
Soil erosion is devastating for gambier farmers because the crops are planted and cultivated on sloping lands (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). Therefore, farmers were advised to recycle and incorporate Gambier plant organic residue onto the soil to keep the level of soil organic carbon (SOC) stable in the soil (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6).
Additionally, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC) under gambier cultivation in the sloping areas of a humid tropical landscape like Indonesia’s Gambier-growing Lansano region has high levels of soil bulk density (BD, defined as dry soil mass per unit volume) due to low organic carbon (OC) content in silty clay soil (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). The suggested solution to mitigate this is to regularly re-introduce extracted gambier leaves as organic matter (OM) back to the soil to boost the soil's physical properties to combat environmental degradation and natural disasters (Yulnafatmawita, Maira, Dennico and Haris, pp. 5-6). High organic carbon in a soil can improve the soil physical (more aggregates, better aeration, higher water holding capacity, lower bulk density), chemical (higher nutrient holding capacity, higher nutrient contents, higher buffering capacity), and biological properties (more balanced and active microbiota) and is an index of soil health and productivity. Soil organic carbon is the nutrient source of soil microbes and thus can enhance their growth, and the soil microbes together with the decomposed soil organic matter and soil mineral particles will form soil aggregates and thus create more aeration space and reduce soil bulk density which would create a better environment for root growth.
REFERENCES
Chia, Jie Lin. Deforestation in 19th-century Singapore. National Library Board Biblioasia 1 April 2021. Retrieved from https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-17/issue-1/apr-jun-2021/deforestation/
Lew, Siew Boon. Gambier Trade, Chinese Community and the Making of Modern Johor, 1784-1917. National University of Singapore (NUS) Libraries Scholar Bank 6 Dec 2021. Retrieved from https://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/bitstreams/fde7458f-21ae-4671-a016-f274e5...
Pwee, Timothy. From Gambier to Pepper: Plantation Agriculture in Singapore. National Library Singapore biblioasia 1 April 2021. Retrieved from https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/vol-17/issue-1/apr-jun-2021/agriculture/
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