Planting the seeds for a greener tomorrow

Earthlink NTU, the student-led environmental club of NTU Singapore, has joined a national effort to plant a million trees in order to restore nature to the cityscape and further green the urban infrastructure.

To kick off NTU’s contributions to NPark’s OneMillionTrees movement, NTU students, faculty and representatives from NParks planted 100 trees from eight different species along Nanyang Avenue on Saturday, 20 August.

They include Aquilaria malaccensis, also known as agarwood and which has been traded for many centuries; Dyera costulata, or jelutong; and Melaleuca cajuputi, the “Paper Bark Tree”, which has leaves that are distilled to make tea tree oil. 

The OneMillionTrees movement aims to plant a million trees across Singapore by 2030 to transform Singapore into a City in Nature and is a key pillar of the Singapore Green Plan 2030. As a “Campus in Nature”, NTU possesses unparalleled natural heritage, as the 200-hectare campus sits next to the Western Water Catchment.

Increased campus greening will enhance habitat quality for over 370 animal species located within the Catchment, including the globally critically endangered Sunda Pangolin and Straw-Headed Bulbul.

The trees planted in and around the NTU main campus will contribute to climate resilience and liveability by mitigating the urban heat island effect. Lush greenery also boosts the well-being of the NTU community by providing a more pleasant living and working environment, while cementing NTU’s unique identity as a green campus with a rich natural heritage.