Land scarcity defines every planning decision in Singapore.
On a tiny island of just over 700 square kilometres (km²), every plot of land is contested ground, caught between competing needs – public housing, critical infrastructure, industry, and green space.
The strong public reaction over the proposed 15-hectare development of Maju Forest for residential housing has reignited a familiar debate: must the nation inevitably trade forests for homes, nature for concrete?
The Maju forest dilemma – following previous debates around Dover Forest, the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, and Tengah – signals that this is not a one-off land-use dispute, but a critical, systemic issue that warrants a deeper review.
The real question is not whether we save this forest, but whether we have in place a rigorous, tested system to value irreplaceable ecological assets. One that weighs these losses against developmental gains before irreversible clearing decisions are made.
From an economic development standpoint, it raises two fundamental questions: One. Are we properly quantifying and accounting the natural assets we stand to lose? Two. What are the structural and regulatory changes required to embed ecological value into future national plans?
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Forests deliver intangible – yet indispensable – ecosystem services that our conventional accounting systems entirely overlook.
What our national balance sheets fail to count
As a country founded on pragmatism, Singapore’s development has always been tied to tangible and measurable outcomes. New housing units, infrastructure upgrades, employment potential deliver clear quantifiable economic and social benefits that fill the national scorecards and policy metrics.
By contrast, forests deliver intangible – yet indispensable – ecosystem services that our conventional accounting systems entirely overlook.
Mature urban forests provide natural cooling. As a country facing some of the world’s fastest rising urban temperatures, this is not a measurable benefit in our current GDP calculations.
In fact, forests do more than just cool temperatures. They regulate soil health, retain stormwater to mitigate flooding, sustain local flora and fauna. They preserve ecological balance in our densely built landscape.
One would argue green spaces in Singapore today are no longer optional amenities – they are essential infrastructure for liveable urban life.
Yet once a forest is cleared, it disrupts an established ecosystem that results in ecological losses almost impossible to replace or replicate.
Replanting trees and creating new green spaces may help, but they are not substitutes for an established forest ecosystem. A study by Singapore’s NParks monitoring 160 study plots across forests in Singapore found that young secondary forests require decades to fully mature. The Urban Redevelopment Authority even recognises that smaller, isolated patches cannot provide the same benefits as continuous forest habitats.
The uncomfortable reality is that a forest can be cleared in months, but its ecosystem may take decades to rebuild.
An unlikely reference: China’s institutional framework for ecological value
China may seem like an unlikely reference for land-scare Singapore.
Its rapid industrialisation and urbanisation came at a enormous environmental cost – polluted waterways, degraded soil, and widespread ecosystem damage. After decades of ruthless prioritisation of GDP growth, the accumulation of environmental crisis pushed policymakers to experiment integrating ecological value into economic decision-making.
Over the past decade, Chinese policymakers have been experimenting ways to integrate ecological value into the country’s economic decision making, including its highly strategic National Five-Year Plans. Specifically, the landmark Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) framework redefines “economic value” to include nature’s contributions to society.
Beyond tangible natural resources, the GEP quantifies invisible regulating services: water retention, climate regulation, soil conservation, and biodiversity support. Shenzhen – a high-density, urbanised city of 18 million people packed into just under 2,000 square kilometres – adopted formal GEP urban planning alongside a legally protected ecological boundary covering 50 per cent of the city. A 2025 study by Frontiers in Environmental Science found that this policy reduced carbon loss by 41 per cent, even as the built-up area expanded by more than half over two decades.
An earlier study mapping China’s GEP mapping revealed a visual divergence between ecological and conventional economic value. Ecologically rich regions such as Qinghai and parts of Zhejiang recorded substantial ecosystem value despite comparatively lower levels of market-based GDP.
The geographical distribution of Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) and GDP across China illustrates how ecological and conventional economic value can tell very different stories. Source: Frontiers in Environmental Science.
Global financial shifts: Nature risks are now financial risks
China is not alone in trying to correct this blind spot.
In recent years, financial and reporting systems are beginning to pay much greater attention to businesses’ dependencies and impacts on biodiversity and ecosystems. The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) body is now developing disclosure requirements on nature related risks and opportunities, building on wider work by initiatives such as the Taskforce for Nature-related Financial Disclosures.
These developments, while still nascent, are gaining traction among regulators in Asia. Why? Because it is a financial risk.
A global survey by Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing found that 88 per cent of institutional investors are seeking data on companies’ impacts on nature. 79 per cent want greater visibility into their dependencies on it.
Companies depend on functioning ecosystems for operations – from water to raw materials to soil health. When these systems deteriorate, supply chains get disrupted, and further down the line would drive up operating costs.
Ultimately, investors want to know where the hidden risks – and potential hidden value – lie.
The harder task: Building institutional structures to balance ecological assets
China’s institutional developments offer another vital lesson for Singapore.
A key barrier to environmental protection is often structural: development-focused agencies have clear, enforceable mandates, while conservation priorities often lack equivalent institutional weight.
Since the 2010s, in the think of its urbanization phase, Beijing sought to strengthen environmental governance partly through its own legal system. ClientEarth, an international environmental law organisation, worked with China’s Supreme People’s Court and other institutions to train judges and prosecutors in environmental law and strengthen capacity for environmental adjudication.
Since then, China has substantially expanded environmental public-interest litigation, including cases involving companies and government bodies accused of failing to comply with environmental responsibilities.
This may not erase China’s ecological challenges overnight, but it does provide a relevant reference point in development. Institutional structures are needed to give ecological interests meaningful weight when they collide with developmental priorities.
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Singapore already has sophisticated tools to measure biodiversity, heat and stormwater, but it can go a step further to build an integrated national framework that weighs ecological loss against development gain.
Consultation matters most when the choices are few
The decision announced on August 14 by Singapore’s Minister of State for National Development to retain more greenery – accepting fewer homes as a consequence - demonstrates that public consultation matters in Singapore.
While revised proportions have yet to be announced, this is a step forward for nature groups and citizens who petitioned against the forest clearing.
But a longer-term problem remains for as long as the country’s development formula remains the same.
The housing and development bodies currently operate with concrete, data-driven targets for residential supply. Singapore already has sophisticated tools to measure biodiversity, heat and stormwater, but it can go a step further to build an integrated national framework that weighs ecological loss against development gain.
Environmental impact assessments (EIA) may be made available to the public (apart from sensitive sites), but Singapore currently has no EIA-specific legislation. As a benchmark, EU member states are legally bound by a directive that mandates when an EIA is triggered, it sets a minimum consultation period, and guarantees the public’s right to challenge decisions in court.
Until we determine the value of natural assets in today’s context – rather than relying on land-use designations dating back to a master plan drawn up in 1980 – Singapore will always face a homes-versus-trees dilemma.
As climate change accelerates and Singapore’s urban heat crisis worsens, there is reason to prioritise these concerns alongside economic growth.
What we choose to count, we choose to protect
The Maju Forest debate has shown that citizens don’t want to choose between homes and nature. It signals that it is time for discourse about pricing in what has long been “intangibles”, to more accurately reflect what is needed for long-term well-being.
Amid worsening road congestion and rising temperatures, green spaces are no longer optional amenities. They are essential infrastructure for a high-density society.
It is time to move beyond outdated GDP-only valuation, rethink our relationship with the natural world, and build a land-use system that truly counts what our conventional balance sheets have long ignored: the priceless, enduring value of nature.
