Proceedings of Nature Society, Singapore’s Conference on ‘Nature Conservation for a Sustainable Singapore’ – 16th October 2011. Pg. 99–120. THE CURRENT STATUS OF MANGROVE FORESTS IN SINGAPORE YANG Shufen1, Rachel L. F. LIM1, SHEUE Chiou-Rong2 & Jean W. H. YONG3,4* 1National Biodiversity Centre, National Parks Board, 1 Cluny Road, Singapore 259569. 2Department of Life Sciences, National Chung Hsing University, 250, Kuo Kuang Rd., Taichung 402, Taiwan. 3Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. 4Singapore University of Technology and Design, 20 Dover Drive, Singapore 138682. (*E-mail:
[email protected]) ABSTRACT Even in a small and urbanised country like Singapore, we are still able to find new plant records in our remaining 735 ha of mangrove forests. With only one notable extinction (Brownlowia argentata Kurz), a total of 35 ‘true’ mangrove species can still be found in Singapore. This is half of the world’s total ‘true’ mangrove species recognised by IUCN. The botanical results indicate that Singapore still harbours rich mangrove diversity. The IUCN 'Critically Endangered' mangrove, Bruguiera hainesii C. G. Rogers, was discovered in 2003 as a new record. Thought to be extinct, B. sexangula (Lour.) Poir. trees were re-discovered in 2002 and occur mainly in the back mangrove. In 1999, an uncertain taxon of Ceriops was discovered, and identified as the so-called C. decandra (Griff.) Ding Hou. We later confirmed that the uncertain Ceriops species should be C. zippeliana Blume. Through international collaborative research efforts, the elucidation of the taxonomic identity of Kandelia obovata Sheue, Liu & Yong (the main mangrove of China, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam) in 2003 was assisted by our local research efforts towards protecting our own Kandelia candel (L.) Druce.