Miss Earth Singapore finalists at Lim Chu Kang mangroves

I’m used to the ladies amongst our volunteers and biology TAs being tough cookies (even to bail me out on occasion), but how would the the Miss Earth Singapore contestants hold out when they joined us at the Lim Chu Kang cleanup?

Well, the mild perfume, panted nails, makeup and sashes were definitely a first at a mangrove cleanup, but they did fine and easily fell into the groove with us.

Late into the session, I pulled Airani away from wrestling some half-buried plastic out of the ground to take photos. She fired off more than 100 shots with the new Fuji Finepix. Certainly that compact is much easier than handling the Lumix in the midst of a cleanup. It produced useable shots – enough for a blog post about the session on the ICCS News blog. Now she is considering video for the actual ICCS day.

Lim Chu Kang mangrove cleanup on 19th July 2008

On a recent mangrove field trip to look for mudskippers, I was dismayed to see the amount of plastic and other trash that has accumulated in this lovely patch of mangroves. Even the mudskippers were resting on plastic and plastic bags were hanging out of trees, having ben deposited there during the high tides.

Although the ICCS hits the beach there annually and sometimes twice, I think the mangroves there need a little more help. So I am heading down with Toddycats and friends on Saturday, 19th July 2008. We’re limiting the number to 50 to avoid impact and are not collecting data since that is what the ICCS is for. We’ll concentrate on hauling stuff out.

If you feel game for this, sign up snipurl.com/toddycats-lck – need to see if I need to provide transport from NUS or Clementi MRT. Do sign up by 13th July 2008.

Unfortunately the Pasir Panjang Guides can’t join us for this workout. I am skipping our Heritage Fest walk for this. But just had to tackle this now.