One Million Trees

I haven't been blogging for over a year, although I have returned occasionally to read my entries from the past. Again, Life has thrown more curveballs for me to contend with, and these have contributed to the neglect of this blog. Nevertheless, here I am in February 2026, at the eve of the Lunar New Year, writing again.

I have entitled this blog entry 'One Million Trees', as this will talk of effort expended towards an aspiration, and perhaps of optimism and hope. In the past year, I have both experienced joyful insights and enthusiasm of what I could do upon leaving my present job, and wallowed in despair when some of these plans were cut short, or appeared unworkable.

The One Million Trees (OMT) programme is a citizen-initiated voluntary effort to plant trees as part of Singapore's greening, initiated among others by my former KE7 roommate, N Sivasothi, also known as Otterman. When I met Siva at the Festival of Biodiversity in 2025, I told him of my plans to participate in more of such activities in my next chapter, after leaving astar.

In Feb this year, I was glad to finally begin the fulfilment of that pledge, by signing up for my first OMT activity at Sungai Buloh Wetland Park. While I was in the lab doing some work on that Saturday morning (Feb 6), I was unsure if the activity would still be held as planned, noting the ominous clouds gathering above. Perhaps more trivially, I was also worried that I was not attired in the right footwear, having donned my relatively new NLB running shoes when I left home for work in the morning! 

I was somewhat still in two minds and anxious about the event, even as I was enjoying my lunch at Holland Drive after a rather fulfilling morning of labwork. Finally, the motivation to start doing something good prevailed, and I was soon on the way to my first tree-planting activity.

The MRT brought me from Buona Vista to Jurong East, then from Jurong East to Kranji, where I hopped on Bus Service 925 that would take me to Sungai Buloh Wetland Reserve. The organisers had advised the volunteers to use the toilet and water facilities at the Visitor Centre prior to the tree planting session and I had more than an hour to spend there as I arrived early!

Likewise, I also arrived earlier at the meeting place at Kranji Way Carpark, where a chartered bus would be bringing us to the tree planting site at 3.30 pm. As more and more volunteers began to pour in (there were 38 in final count), I looked around, but could not the person marking attendance (Airani, from the instructions). Before long, however, a grey car pulled up into the bus bay and dropped off two passengers, who proceeded to get some stuff from the boot. One of them was a lady who turned out to be Airani, the other one was no other than my friend and leader of the pack, the Otterman Siva himself!

True to his role as mentor to the next generation of local champions for nature, Siva stood around at the bus stop, mingling with the volunteers, including the regulars, as well as newbies like myself. Later on, I gathered that this group consisted of mainly two subgroups - the Toddycats, that were affiliated with NUS School of Biological Sciences (where Siva was lecturer) and the Biodiversity Friends Forum (BFF), made up of like-minded youths with a keen interest in Nature and their role in its promotion and conservation.

Instructions to volunteers on getting to the meeting place

View from the bus on the way to the tree planting site in Lim Chu Kang

Our first five saplings in the ground!

Our second batch of plants (before the sudden downpour)

Posing with our new plants at the Sungai Buloh Wetland Reserve

As for myself, I had vowed to dedicate at least a part of my life to nature and sustainability causes, but perhaps I had a more selfish motive as well. I knew that I would need to continue to socialize in my next chapter, as human connections would keep me healthy in mind. Nevertheless, I did not know what to expect from my first tree planting, as Siva was the only person that I knew, but who was very much involved with the Toddycats and BFF. In that way, I was fortunate to have an extremely valuable connection and starting point!

As I sat in the chartered bus, looking out of the window, I felt a kind of comfort infusing into my being. Here I was, hurtling into the 'wilderness', experiencing something new, but something that I was likely to return again and again to, in the future. And that felt like an okay future to me.

Google Maps screenshot showing the location of the bus on the way to the tree planting site. The Wetland Reserve is in the darker green shade.

Before long, the bus had brought us as far is it could, to the boundary of the Wetland Reserve. From this point, we had to complete the journey on foot, by following a straight and narrow laterite path. And this we did. On our right hand side, a coiled razor wire wound itself all along the way, marking the border of the Reserve. After some 10 mins of brisk walking, our group arrived at the tree-planting site.

Two regular volunteers were already there, doing the preparatory work.

List of species planted, with links to NParks' species information sheets:

1. Ardisia elliptica (seashore Ardisia)
2. ⁠Ficus heteropleura (sandy-leaved fig)
3. Ficus sinuata 
4. Glochidion littorale (Jambu Kera)
5. ⁠Heptapleurum ellipticum (cenama gajah)
6. Melastoma malabathricum (senduduk)
7. Melicope lunu-ankenda (cabang tiga, pepauh)
   
8. ⁠Neolitsea cassia (shore laurel)
9. Premna serratifolia (buas-buas)