Managing wildlife in Singapore's built environment

Abstract

Urbanisation worldwide has led to an increase in human-wildlife conflict. Singapore, as a highly urbanised city-state, inevitably faces wildlife management challenges due to its limited geographical space. Wildlife management in Singapore’s built environment goes beyond the conservation of wildlife. As urban development continues, the problem of wildlife encroachment into the human habitat is real. Such encroachment may cause adverse impacts to residents living in the built environment. The government agencies managing wildlife faces the dilemma between preserving wildlife and protecting residents from being disturbed by wildlife. Residents living in urban environments have mixed attitudes towards this conflict-causing wildlife, and their perceptions on wildlife and wildlife management should be taken into consideration when deciding wildlife management policies and measures. The literature review was done to understand the drivers and barriers for managing wildlife worldwide, as well as measures adopted to manage wildlife. Those that suit Singapore’s context were identified before including them in survey questionnaires to understand the perceptions of residents towards these findings. The institutional framework was adopted to understand the drivers, barriers and measures within the regulative, normative and cultural-cognitive pillars. The study adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, including survey questionnaires, interviews and case studies. Perceptions among residents towards the drivers, barriers and measures were gathered from 65 survey respondents who are aware of wild boars in Singapore, and the drivers, barriers and measures are ranked based on the Likert Scale scores rated by the respondents. The survey revealed that the perceptions towards encountering wild boars among residents who had previously encountered wild boar in Singapore (n=30) are slightly positive. They also feel that the possibility of encountering wild boars is less frequent and has a low impact on them. Interviews with the built environment sector’s professionals and wildlife management experts were conducted to provide insights to the survey result. Case studies of Hong Kong and Japan examine best practices for managing wild boars and relate to the study findings on measures for managing wild boars. The dissertation concludes with a recommendation to adopt a building lifecycle management perspective, integrating both the built environment sector and traditional wildlife management stakeholders to manage human-wildlife conflicts in the urban environment collaboratively.