Can Wildlife Writing in Singapore Foster a Paradigm Shift for Nature Conservation?
Presented by Cicada Tree Eco-Place and Bollywood Farms
Date: Sat 27 June 2026
Time: 2pm to 6pm
Venue: Bollywood Farms
Address: 100 Neo Tiew Road , Singapore 719026
Transport: Shuttle-bus from Kranji MRT Station to Bollywood Farms, and vice versa, provided.
Charge: SGD30.00 per participant, includes refreshments.
Part proceeds will go towards Trees for Tigers
To register: https://forms.gle/ob1F7kmMF5xekMPt8
one form per participant
Programme overview
This Symposium foregrounds nature writing in Singapore – author, editor, journalist, poet, publisher and biodiversity blogger come together to share the importance, efficacy, urgency and challenges of increasing eco-literacy for nature conservation.
Who should attend?
Open to all nature lovers, writers, poets, and anyone concerned about biodiversity loss and climate crises, this session aims to motivate and empower participants with the agency and confidence to implement change by picking up their pens!
Programme highlights
Presentations/sharings by 5 speakers:
- Esther Vincent Xueming: “Returning Home through Ecowriting”
- Jessica Lee Chu En: “Nature in nonfiction, from screen to book”
- Ng Kah Gay: “Enhancing public ecoliteracy”
- Robin Hicks: “The challenges of nature journalism in Singapore”
- Sivasothi N.: “Blogging beyond the classroom – a meaningful advocacy tool”
Fringe activities
- Guided Nature Walks by Cicada Tree Eco-Place (Guides – Andrew Tay and Tan Hang Chong (starts at 5pm )
- Book Sale by Ethos Books
- Puntun Booth by Baba Gabra
- Outreach Booth by Cicada Tree Eco-Place
Symposium schedule
1:30pm
Registration opens
2:00pm
Welcome remarks by Teresa Teo Guttensohn (Co-founder, Cicada Tree Eco-Place) and Lynn Ee (General Warrior, Bollywood Farms)
Opening performance by singer-songwriter lewloh
“Returning Home through Ecowriting” by
Esther Vincent Xueming (Writer & Editor)
Synopsis
In times of crisis, grief and loss, writing can be a powerful way to ground ourselves and bring us home. What is an ecopoem but a love song to the earth? In tending to our words, we tend to our hearts, and in doing so, return home to our original state of wholeness and peace. Esther will read and share some poems from womb song, as well as excerpts from her personal essays if time permits.
“Nature in non-fiction, from screen to book” by
Jessica Lee Chu En (Director & Producer)
Synopsis
How can stories about nature be told across both screen and page, and what possibilities does each medium offer?
This talk explores how nonfiction engages with the natural world through film and writing, where visual storytelling brings immediacy, texture, and emotional resonance, while long-form writing opens space for depth, reflection, and the recovery of overlooked histories.
Drawing on Secret Lives of Trees and a forthcoming book on the history of trees in Singapore, it considers how both mediums, in their own ways, expand the ways nature can be seen, understood, and remembered within a landscape where it is deeply intertwined with development and identity.
3:00pm
Tea break – plant-based makan by Poison Ivy Bistro
3:30pm
Pantuns performed by Baba Gabra
Enhancing public eco-literacy by Ng Kah Gay
(Publisher, Ethos Books)
Synopsis
In the right hands, knowledge can become a tool for raising awareness, building shared consciousness, and motivating collective practices. Our hope is for eco-literacy to shape policies and drive behaviours that will carve out spaces more hospitable to nature. For this to happen, we must better understand the logic of capitalist economies, to introduce structures compatible with our nature as interconnected beings. We need economic models that enable shared access and learning in order to enhance public eco-literacy.
“The challenges of nature journalism in Singapore” by
Robin Hicks (Journalist)
Synopsis
What are the challenges of reporting on nature in Singapore, where press freedom is limited and environmental narratives often intersect with state priorities? Nature reporting holds transformative potential. But selfcensorship, limited access to data, and the difficulty of openly critiquing policy decisions can compromise its impact.
“Blogging beyond the classroom – a meaningful advocacy tool” by Sivasothi N. (Educator & Conservationist)
Synopsis
In an era of rapid, fragmented digital communication, blogging offers a platform to develop writing skills while enabling advocacy and stewardship for nature. Even modest early writing can feed the curiosity of how nature sector functions and thinks in Singapore. Since the 2000s, this intersected public discourse, from Chek Jawa and the Cross Island Line to migrate to closed door structured engagements. The current discourse over ongoing EIAs, agency collaborations, and media consultations was built partly on the credibility and trust initially established within the often still cautious civic landscape. The searchable repository of observations and ideas helps deepen understanding among researchers, students, practitioners, and the public at large, and enhances ground voices into the evolving public record of ecological understanding and action over time.
4.30pm to 5:00pm
Q&A session with Guest Speakers moderated by
Tia Andrea Guttensohn (Multicultural Actor and Educator)
6:00pm
End of event
Enquiries on symposium
Please email Cicada Tree Eco-Place at contactctep@gmail.com
Attn: Teresa Teo Guttensohn and Rominia Leonard
Part proceeds will go towards Trees for Tigers*
A portion of the symposium proceeds will support Trees for Tigers, a habitat restoration initiative by the Malaysian Conservation Collective at the Sungai Yu Ecological Corridor in Pahang — a vital wildlife corridor that connects two major forest landscapes.
Your participation will directly help fund the planting and maintenance of 100 new saplings, while also supporting the continued care of 500 trees planted previously.
By joining this symposium, you are not only supporting nature writing and eco-literacy, you are also helping restore habitats for wildlife and protect a landscape that matters.
