Mandai Wildlife Group manages Singapore’s five wildlife parks, the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, River Wonders, Bird Paradise, and the upcoming Rainforest Wild, scheduled to open in 2024.
The five parks, collectively called the Mandai Wildlife Reserve, are key to the transformation of the Mandai area into an integrated wildlife and nature precinct.
CEO Mike Barclay, who helms Singapore’s award-winning wildlife parks, is a fierce advocate for conservation. He was CEO of Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) before joining the then Wildlife Reserves Singapore in 2015. He restructured SDC and grew visitorship to Sentosa, Singapore’s resort island, from 5.6 million in 2007 to almost 20 million in 2013. Barclay also worked with Singapore Airlines for 16 years. During this time, he held various portfolios around the world, culminating in his 2004 appointment as CEO of SilkAir.
Barclay is continuing the Mandai Wildlife Group’s conservation efforts with Mandai Nature, a non‑profit set up in association with Temasek in December 2020.
Mandai Wildlife Group: driven by purpose
“I’ve always had a bit of a connection with nature and wildlife,” he tells blooloop. “I grew up in the West Indies. So, I had a very outdoorsy upbringing. I was a volunteer as a youngster in Nepal, and I was quite determined at that time to become a conservation ecologist. I went to university to study physical geography. But then I got sidetracked to become a transport planner and engineer and joined an airline. It took me another 20 years to find my way back to the area of conservation.”
Having left the airline world, he took a job running the leisure island of Sentosa:
“We had two parks there, and were doing quite a lot to lift the sustainability of the island and to improve the wildlife status of the parks,” he observes. “That was a good segue into Mandai.”
Mandai, he explains, is a purpose-driven organisation:
“Our purpose is to strive for a world where people and wildlife can thrive together. We put animal welfare right at the centre of what we do. We take the view that unless we get that right, we shouldn’t have a license to operate zoos. So, it’s fundamental to us. We also put sustainable best practices at the centre of the organisation. We are a conservation-minded organisation, constantly thinking about how to lighten our impact on the planet.”
A joined-up approach to sustainability
This, he says, is not simply about reducing the carbon footprint or using less water:
“It’s also about working with your supply chain to not only make sure that you lead with best practices, but you influence others. We have done a lot of work on getting plastic out of our supply chain, making sure all the food that we serve our guests and our animals is sustainably sourced, trying to reduce the carbon footprint of everything that comes to us.”
“There is a lot of work in this space. I think the more you do, the more you also shape the industry. Mandai Wildlife Group was a founding member of the sustainable palm oil organisation for this region, Support Asia for Sustainable Palm Oil (SASPO). This is a group of companies that have banded together to encourage more companies to switch to sustainably produced palm oil. These initiatives all add to the advocacy around conservation.”
Education at Mandai Wildlife Group
Education, he explains, is key:
“We use our zoos as tremendous platforms for education and advocacy. In a good year, we deal with more than 5 million guests. Also, we have about 350,000 students going through education programs every year. We are particularly strong at the preschool and primary school level.”
There is a team of around 40 educators in the organisation.
“For most of the programs, we have the schools come to us, but we also do have outreach in schools. These are programs aimed at raising the awareness of young children. We live in a very urban environment in Singapore; most of our kids live in urban environments now. They are really detached from nature, and these are important programs to introduce them to wildlife.”
“We’ve got some fantastic exhibits here, we also help them begin to understand and appreciate nature and add in key messaging about what they could do day-to-day to live a bit more sustainably, and to care about conservation issues.
“We are just launching a new initiative to engage at the tertiary level, a Mandai Institute. This will allow us to work in a much more structured way with our universities and our polytechnics. The goal, really, is to train up the next generation of conservationists, which we need so badly. We are so short of people working in the field.”
Conservation projects
The final piece of the puzzle is the conservation works.
“Here at our parks, we do a lot of work on the rescue of native species, on research and on coordinated breeding programs concerning the threatened species,” he explains. “Then in situ, in the field, we support over 40 projects across Southeast Asia. We generally come in from an endangered species angle. But, inevitably, that involves looking at protecting the habitat and engaging local communities, too.
“We find a lot of these communities are very strong. But no one has really talked to them about the fact that the resources are finite and that the animals are endangered, and won’t be around unless we act now. Very often, the communities are quite willing to act if they’re given the right information.”
Concerning in situ conservation projects that Mandai Wildlife Group is invoved in, Barclay explains:
“Our thinking is that we should restrict our work to Southeast Asia because there’s so much to be done here. A number of the world’s biodiversity hotspots are in our neighbourhood, and a lack of attention investment going into this space. We’ve got really good connections across all the countries of Southeast Asia. So, we can actually make a very significant difference here.
“We’re currently supporting about 40 projects. For many of the projects, we also have partners supporting them. Building up partnerships makes the project more resilient.”
Mandai Wildlife Group works with local communities
One example of the conservation work being done concerns the Javan gibbon:
“The project is in the Indonesian central Javan Highlands, where we have an NGO partner called SwaraOwa. SwaraOwa is particularly focused on one species of silvery gibbon, the native name for which is the Owa, which is the call it makes.”
The project is situated in the easternmost part of its range. The Javan gibbon is fast being driven out of this range by poaching and loss of forest habitat.
“We have been working with SwaraOwa to discover the major drivers. One was coffee production; local villagers were cutting down the forest to plant coffee. We worked with the local communities to explain that they don’t need to do that. They can grow shade-grown coffee under the trees.”
Additionally:
“We have guaranteed to buy 80% of their annual harvest. We bring that back to Singapore, and serve it as our coffee here at the zoos of Mandai. It guarantees a market for them, and they sell the remaining 20% in the local markets. They’re very happy with the arrangement.”
Through this initiative, the villagers have also become protectors of the forest:
“They are actively keeping out the poachers, now that they’re aware that the silvery gibbon is threatened. But they’re also protecting langur species, macaques, and all the bird life. The next phase we’re working on is [the introduction of] other sustainable crops; things like sustainably produced sugar from sugar palm, sustainably produced honey – and also ecotourism.
“It’s a really nice project. It’s changing mindsets, and moving in a good direction.”
Resoving human-elephant conflict
Another Mandai Wildlife Group initiative focuses on resolving human-elephant conflicts in Way Kambas National Park.
The 126,000-hectare Way Kambas National Park (WKNP) in Sumatra is home to nearly 180 wild Sumatran Elephants. This is a population which accounts for more than 10% of the remaining wild population.
Conversion of forest to other land use due to illegal logging, cultivation and livestock grazing has resulted in elephants crossing paths with local villagers, damaging crops and property. This in turn has given rise to local community hostility towards these wild elephants.
Barclay explains:
“Way Kambas has got the ocean on the north side, and the west side has river systems. On the southern side, there is no natural boundary between the rainforest and the farmlands of the villages. What we were seeing was incursions into the park by the farmers, but also excursions from the park by the elephants. That led to confrontations, and to the shooting and poisoning of elephants. Again, we work with another local NGO.
“We are repurposing bull elephants that were being held in captivity from previous conflict events, and pairing them up with a mahout – a keeper.”
Recovering habitats
Mandai Nature funds a series of patrols on this border. The Elephant Response Units (ERUs) located in the conflict zones monitor and prevent illegal activities. They also keep watch on elephant herds observed to be venturing out of WKNP.
The ERU teams also support and train the local community to conduct regular crop guarding at night and wild elephant drives. Real-time exchange of information via mobile phone further improves the effectiveness of the ERU teams and local community groups, working together to prevent human-elephant conflicts.
“The villagers have got behind this,” Barclay comments. “They call in the patrol if they see a wild elephant, rather than confronting the elephant. Their crop yields and their land value have gone up. And, at the same time, the population of the wild elephants is recovering.”
When a key species such as the elephant begins to recover, everything else in the habitat also benefits:
“The Sumatran rhinos are turning round in terms of numbers, as are the tigers, along with a whole host of other animals.”
Conservationists, Barclay contends, have to be optimistic about the work that they’re doing, while being aware that the trends are negative:
“If we’re not there fighting for a nature-positive future, it’s so much worse. I think the level of awareness around climate issues and biodiversity issues is so much higher today across countries, and governments, than 10 years ago. We are in a better place than we were 10 years ago in terms of awareness. We’re in a worse place than we were years ago in terms of species survival and the negative impacts of changing climate.”
Mandai Wildlife Group’s attractions
Turning back to Mandai Wildlife Group’s attractions in Singapore, Barclay outlines the rejuvenation project:
“At the beginning of the project, we were operating four zoos. Three of them are here at Mandai, in one location: the Singapore Zoo, River Wonders, and Night Safari.
“Singapore Zoo is a very beautiful open mixed zoo. River Wonders is a freshwater aquarium, but it also tells the story of the animals that live on the banks of river systems, so there are land-based animals as well as marine animals. Night Safari is a unique night zoo, only open in the evening. It’s a wonderful opportunity to showcase our nocturnal species. There are so many nocturnal species in the tropics, so it’s always a bit of a ‘wow’.
“Then, at a different location in the west of Singapore, we had a bird park, Jurong Bird Park. The first significant act of this development is that we have closed Jurong Bird Park, and we’ve opened a new bird park here at Mandai: Bird Paradise. So, we now have four operating zoos at Mandai.”
The fifth one, Rainforest Wilds, is scheduled to open next year:
“It will feature the rainforest of Southeast Asia, and of Africa,” he explains. “It will be a bit more of an adventure park. You will have to go and look for the megafauna of the rainforest. There will be different grades of paths from which to explore the rainforest, at different heights. Some are up in the treetop, some are on the ground, and some are underground, in a cave system modelled after a cave system in Malaysia.”
A world-leading nature and wildlife destination
Mandai Wildlife Group will, then, end up with five integrated zoos.
“We also have two significant indoor attractions coming,” he adds. “They will be very entertaining, but they will really drive home the key messaging on issues of sustainability and conservation.”
There will be a resort, two dedicated campsites, and public spaces. “It will be a real destination where you can just come enjoy the public space, eat at our restaurants,” he says. “The idea is to make it vibrant for locals as well as for visiting guests.
“Our ultimate goal is to have a world-leading nature and wildlife destination, the Mandai Wildlife Reserve.”
All images credit Mandai Wildlife Group unless otherwise stated. Top image: Singapore Zoo, Great Rift Valley of Ethiopia – Hamadryas Baboons
