Lazarus: hoping for a resurrection
Wildfilms and a motley bunch of beachfleas had a quick look at Lazarus Island yesterday. This is our first visit for a long while.
The rocky shore facing St. John's is strewn with an assortment of colourful, wave-worn pebbles and stones. The sea relentlessly carved the cliffs into wondrous shapes, showing off the layers of colourful sediments. Coastal plants cloak the hillside. A natural and priceless work of art, eons in the making.
Joseph Lai made a preliminary survey of the coastal vegetation and has made some exciting discoveries.
Among them, probably the last Changi Tree in the Southern Islands. And what a majestic Sindora wallichii it is. It has a wide crown, is about 18m tall with an estimated girth of 270 to 300cm! Two other rare plants he saw include a rare ephiphytic shrub and a mistletoe.
See Joe's Flora of Lazarus on his www.eart-h.com website for a full list of plants with photos, and also photos of the beautiful rock formations on the island.
Seagrasses being recently very much in our minds, we were delighted to find patches fresh green Spoon seagrasses (Halophila ovalis). There were also Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii) and Needle seagrass (Halodule sp.). But large chunks of seagrasses had their underground stems and roots exposed, suggesting something is dislodging them.
Wildfilms focused on the rocky shore and rubble area to try to document the shore life there. Some of the usual shore animals, such as this beautiful Branched tentacle sea anemone (Phymanthus sp.), were common there.
I disturbed a busy little Marine spider (Desis sp.) who skittered over water, scrambled over rubble and rustled through seaweeds in its hunt for dinner.
The special find for the day was this nearly transparent flatworm that slithered rapidly over the sand. There's a teeny tiny little goby infront of it as well (lower right corner) which I totally didn't see until I processed the photo (as usual). We thought we should name this flatworm the Ahchoo flatworm. As in "Aaah Chooo!! Oh dear, did I make that? Or is that a transparent flatworm?".
There was also an encounter with an octopus, which apparently stressed both the observers and the observed.
There were a few living hard corals. But we did not see any of the huge soft corals that used to plaster the shore like big fried omelettes. Some photos of the Lazarus shore taken in 2002 are on beachfleas and Dr Chua Ee Kiam's simply green site
In fact, the shore seemed very quiet. Perhaps it was the recent deluge (most marine creatures don't agree with freshwater)? Or perhaps something more? There is a huge floating structure opposite the rocky shore that was not there in the past. It looks like part of some sort of fishery enterprise. The currents rushing under the bridge between St John's Island and Lazarus Island is also something different.
It is rather sad to know we traded gorgeous living reefs and shores that any Singaporean could visit, for a $60m reclamation project on Seringat-Lazarus-Kias, ostensibly to create something that millionaires might want.
This effort included the production of a 'natural beach' which involved the import of 1,000 coconut trees, dumping enough soil to fill 5,000 lorries and measuring two storeys high when piled up, and 36 cubic metres of water every day to keep the plants growing. The Lazarus 'natural shore' project won the landscape company a gold award from the Landscape Industry Association.
Ironically, this project buried the living reefs at Seringat and Kias and probably affected the shores on Lazarus. Priceless habitats that nature took millenia to build. That were ours without cost.
But nature is resilient and the Lazarus shores may yet recover. If it is left alone and given time to recuperate. We can only hope for a resurrection.
The rocky shore facing St. John's is strewn with an assortment of colourful, wave-worn pebbles and stones. The sea relentlessly carved the cliffs into wondrous shapes, showing off the layers of colourful sediments. Coastal plants cloak the hillside. A natural and priceless work of art, eons in the making.
Joseph Lai made a preliminary survey of the coastal vegetation and has made some exciting discoveries.
Among them, probably the last Changi Tree in the Southern Islands. And what a majestic Sindora wallichii it is. It has a wide crown, is about 18m tall with an estimated girth of 270 to 300cm! Two other rare plants he saw include a rare ephiphytic shrub and a mistletoe.
See Joe's Flora of Lazarus on his www.eart-h.com website for a full list of plants with photos, and also photos of the beautiful rock formations on the island.
Seagrasses being recently very much in our minds, we were delighted to find patches fresh green Spoon seagrasses (Halophila ovalis). There were also Sickle seagrass (Thalassia hemprichii) and Needle seagrass (Halodule sp.). But large chunks of seagrasses had their underground stems and roots exposed, suggesting something is dislodging them.
Wildfilms focused on the rocky shore and rubble area to try to document the shore life there. Some of the usual shore animals, such as this beautiful Branched tentacle sea anemone (Phymanthus sp.), were common there.
I disturbed a busy little Marine spider (Desis sp.) who skittered over water, scrambled over rubble and rustled through seaweeds in its hunt for dinner.
The special find for the day was this nearly transparent flatworm that slithered rapidly over the sand. There's a teeny tiny little goby infront of it as well (lower right corner) which I totally didn't see until I processed the photo (as usual). We thought we should name this flatworm the Ahchoo flatworm. As in "Aaah Chooo!! Oh dear, did I make that? Or is that a transparent flatworm?".
There was also an encounter with an octopus, which apparently stressed both the observers and the observed.
There were a few living hard corals. But we did not see any of the huge soft corals that used to plaster the shore like big fried omelettes. Some photos of the Lazarus shore taken in 2002 are on beachfleas and Dr Chua Ee Kiam's simply green site
In fact, the shore seemed very quiet. Perhaps it was the recent deluge (most marine creatures don't agree with freshwater)? Or perhaps something more? There is a huge floating structure opposite the rocky shore that was not there in the past. It looks like part of some sort of fishery enterprise. The currents rushing under the bridge between St John's Island and Lazarus Island is also something different.
It is rather sad to know we traded gorgeous living reefs and shores that any Singaporean could visit, for a $60m reclamation project on Seringat-Lazarus-Kias, ostensibly to create something that millionaires might want.
This effort included the production of a 'natural beach' which involved the import of 1,000 coconut trees, dumping enough soil to fill 5,000 lorries and measuring two storeys high when piled up, and 36 cubic metres of water every day to keep the plants growing. The Lazarus 'natural shore' project won the landscape company a gold award from the Landscape Industry Association.
Ironically, this project buried the living reefs at Seringat and Kias and probably affected the shores on Lazarus. Priceless habitats that nature took millenia to build. That were ours without cost.
But nature is resilient and the Lazarus shores may yet recover. If it is left alone and given time to recuperate. We can only hope for a resurrection.
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