Pasir Ris Farmway 1, The End of an Era

It all started with trying to find two ducks.

Two little grebes to be exact. I'd been trying to hunt down the little grebes since my thesis film about a year ago. They were only seen briefly once about two years ago, but mostly four years before that.

So when I'd seen Facebook posts about the couple mysteriously reappearing at an abandoned fish farm along Pasir Ris Farmway, I immediately went down on my first free day to try and find them.

My mum and I drove over the first evening, braving the rain, but I couldn't find the entrance.

But the second day I went back, I caught sight of a few birders with their iconically huge cameras and decided to follow them in — I could not believe that THAT was the entrance.

The dilapidated entrance to the abandoned fish farm.

I met so many lovely birders along the way trying to catch other lifers like the black cap, and spotted surprise migratory birds in the morning while waiting.

The area would go quiet (in a way) late morning once the trucks started moving in. Sure, they were annoyingly scaring the birds, but I didn't overthink it then thinking they were just routine tree trimmings.

But then Thursday happened.

I didn't think much of the trucks moving in, thinking they were just routine tree trimmings.

Walking over from the bus stop, I was filled with dread as I walked past felled tree after tree. The previous day I'd also seen otters, so I wasn't optimistic that the grebes were alive at all.

The dilapidated gate boarded up.

When I reached the "entrance", the place was all boarded up. The gate was locked. Even the small plank that people would use to cross the drain had been kicked down and broken.

The nail in the coffin was when the contractors said they were going to fill up the beautiful wetland habitat with sand.

Trucks packed with sand driving past a female photographer.

Devastated, I decided to take the route down Pasir Ris Farmway 3 to visit Lorong Halus once more, since it was nearby. But even that had become another treeless human highway.

And Halus, dear friends, has also reached its end.

Parts of the PCN are already fenced off.

Parts of the PCN are already closed. Uncle Ringo has moved out. Blukar has long been gated shut.

I've read that part of the rewilding process is that you have to let things die because those dead things give life to other organisms. But in just four short days, I watched an enter ecosystem die. I'm pretty sure that's not what the book meant.

Perhaps for the final time: follow the development at #TheLorongHalusProject

I just wanted to snap a picture of a damned duck.