Private Lives: An Exposé of Singapore's Mangroves

by Peter K.L. Ng (Editor), Kelvin K.P. Lim (Editor), Wang Luan Keng (Editor)

The mangrove environment of Singapore has changed substantially in the last century. Today, over 90% of this key habitat has been lost. Yet, the remaining parts have shown tremendous resilience in surviving, and in the process, have helped "safeguard" a very important part of Singapore's biodiversity. Following the style and philosophy of the first book on seashore organisms, we now share with the readers the many strange and interesting tales about the myriad diversity of plants and animal that live in mangroves. We hope this will go a long way to dispel the myth that mangroves are awful places full of mosquitoes and sticky mud and nothing else. Through education, we hope to influence the next generation of mangrove conservationists! We need to keep whatever we have left!

249 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[N Dorville · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not entirely sure what the flow of this book is? It jumps between animal groups and themes - e.g. pollution, cleaning animals, ecosystem services, cultural significance of certain animals/trees

Still very good though, a lot of good info, and I appreciate that they included the Malay names of the trees, and the constant reminder that our culture and history, as by extension, our future, is intertwined with nature.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

More entertaining than I thought it would be. It's a nature documentary in book form. Read in Sir David Attenborough's voice if that helps.

There are a good range of photographs to show the organisms that are described. Some of those that stood out were a worm called Eunice, a crab called Diogenes, and Cryptopodia fornicata (it's not what it sounds like!).

It might have been better with some illustrated diagrams to help with the description, e.g. how the crab can opener-claw works.