Volunteer For Us.

Nature Society (Singapore) is always looking for volunteers to help out in our projects. We are recruiting volunteers to help out in the following projects:

1) Veggie Thursday

Nature Society (Singapore), together with many other organizations such as ACRES, WWF and the Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore), is endorsing this campaign to encourage people to cut down on meat consumption (or even better, go vegetarian) every Thursday. By simply cutting down on meat for a day, we can help to cut down on the carbon emissions from the rearing of animals. We also get to reduce the amount of vegetables and other plants needed to feed them.

We are looking for enthusiastic and enterprising people who can help us spread this message by organising activities in celebration of Veggie Thursday at their workplace, school or organization. If you have any plans or suggestions, please contact Goh Ter Yang at teryang@nss.org.sg.

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2) Horseshoe Crab Rescue & Research

This initiative started as a conservation effort to rescue Horseshoe Crabs entrapped in deployed and abandoned fishing nets at the Mandai mudflats. It then evolved to basic research on their population structure and on to more sophisticated research to improve our understanding of this little-known ancient mariner, the Horseshoe Crab, which is as old as the dinosaurs.

Over the years, we had students from primary, secondary and international schools, trainee teachers from NIE and members of the public collaborating in rescue and research on the Mandai mudflats. This activity is a real immersion in "muddy hands-on and legs in mud" and "out of the comfort zone" search and, if necessary, rescue work. We introduce and train volunteers in proper handling of the Horseshoe Crabs, and how to measure their length, identify their gender and breeding status, record measurements and release them back into the mangroves. They may also be involved and assist with data analysis to help determine population size and density. 

This activity is held once every month. To take part, please refer to our events page and register online.

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3) Kranji Marshes Maintenance

Kranji Marsh, located on the western shore of the Kranji Reservoir, is adopted by Nature Society (Singapore) under the PUB's ABC Waters Programme. We are currently regularly carrying out maintenance work at Kranji Marsh to keep open a marshy pond there. The pond is a habitat for wetland wildlife, especially the birdlife (such as the Common Moorhen, Lesser Whistling Duck) that requires more open watery spaces. If there is no effort to keep the watery spaces open, the aquatic plants around the marshy edges (such as Water Banana, Aquatic Mimosa etc) will swamp over and cover up the pond. Eventually, the pond may disappear altogether and become dry land. We hope that our maintenance work will provide a variety of wetland niches, from open water to aquatic plants along the edges, to satisfy the needs of different wetland wildlife.

We welcome volunteers to help clear aquatic vegetation at the shallower edges of the pond, as well as to remove grasses crowding around vegetation that we planted to attract butterflies. Equipment such as cutters, gloves and boots will be provided. If you are in a group of about 20 to 30 people and are interested in this activity, please contact Goh Ter Yang at teryang@nss.org.sg to fix up a date.

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