This work is a pioneering effort. Not only is it one of the first to synthesise the stories of non-human natures in Singapore from interdisciplinary sources, it centralises youth voices rarely amplified in public discourse. All the contributors to this book are born in the 1990s. It thus presents an emerging environmentalist perspective of a generation steeped in digitally facilitated calls for action against climate change and sensitive to the future vulnerability of living in this epoch.
The introduction asserts, ‘There's pain in these pages. There is frustration, disappointment, anger … But there is also wonder, beauty and solidarity …’ (p. 15). Impactful chapters in the volume deftly combine both, evoking wonder to elicit discomfort. Neo Xiaoyun's elegiac title essay, interweaves the natural history of crabs with ethical issues arising from an omnivorous diet. Reading about crab cannibalism and the moulting process that renders these crabs delectable gives them personalities that one might not be able to forget when facing this dish. Sarah Novak uses art and photography to re-orient our optics on sand, its forcible displacement from the region and re-emplacement as reclaimed land in this city-state. Yogesh Tulsi and Ng Xin unpack iconic non-human foes — the spectre of ‘Orang Minyak’ and tigers respectively — to interrogate the ubiquity of ecological crime in a capitalistic context. While each essay begins with wonder, they frequently end with frustration. Tulsi could speak for almost all the contributors when he concludes that ‘Singapore, a “practical” nation operating within a global regime of insatiable fossil-fuelled capitalism, is becoming the orang minyak: a self-interested, oil-soaked actor willing to destroy traditional communities and ecosystems in the pursuit of comfort, recognition and wealth’ (p. 178).
Attendant with this frustration is mourning for the displaced. Fu Xiyao excavates Semakau for the histories of displaced Southern Islands indigenous communities. Heeeun Monica Kim reflects on how Singapore's self-congratulatory affection for otters refracts attention away from other declining species and Lee Jin Hee's study on Javan mynahs compares them to unwelcome refugees and migrants to Singapore. While thoughtfully argued and well-written, in my view, they are unlikely to convince a general audience predisposed towards regarding these trade-offs as acceptable. Moreover, the foci on who and what was lost gives rise to the question of whether these narratives romanticise the past. A closer attention to history might be warranted as environmental historians are split on whether the low carbon footprint of indigenous communities in the past was due to ecological wisdom or a lack of technological wherewithal. In other words, was inter-species harmony ever a conscious, moral human choice?
At a conceptual level, the book deploys the term ‘Anthropocene’ unproblematically as an era of unprecedented collective human power to reshape the non-human natural world. It takes human power as a given without seriously considering ecological pushback. By using the Anthropocene as a metaphor for human dominance, the book neglects the term's geological roots that spoke of ‘deep time’ punctuated by mass extinctions. Such past extinctions remind us that it is precisely at one's most powerful that one is most vulnerable. This epoch is balanced on the precipice of a deep past that did not include humans, and a deep future that may not do so as well. Distancing the term from geology leans this book towards the pursuit of a ‘good Anthropocene’; an academic inclination that has been roundly critiqued and a notion that is still debated. Can we step back from our own self-destructive desires?
The book's advocacy appears to be for a responsible wielding of power especially by political elites, industry and high-income consumers. A few essays deal with such constructive interventions. Michele Chong offers an exciting vision of forested eco-bridges friendly to both humans and our close monkey cousins. Aidan Mock connects Singapore's fledgling environmental movements with international climate goals and pushes for a local Green New Deal. Similarly, Bertrand Seah argues for divestment from fossil fuels and a re-investment into green financing. State-led environmental education received attention in a joint chapter by Al Lim and Feroz Khan, while Mathias Ooi views personal and peer re-education as crucial to cultivating a new environmental ethos. All these suggestions are urgent, insightful and well overdue. Future inquiries along these lines may also consider how these actions re-position urban centres such as Singapore vis-à-vis its agrarian neighbours. In short, what does the globality of this epoch mean for Singapore?
The questions that this book provokes attests to its value. At its core, the book is less about the Anthropocene than the deep, ethical implications of eating a chilli crab. There is much in this articulate and timely volume to spark discussion in class and book clubs; to foster new appreciation of Singapore's multi-species hybridity; to begin a true accounting of what Singapore's progress has cost. It is meant to and should be widely read.
