35,000. Thank you and please don’t stop here.
35,000 of you have now signed. When this started, it was one resident hoping a few more people might notice Maju Forest before it was too late. There is no campaign machine behind this. Every signature is someone who decided, on their own, that this mattered.
Some things from these past weeks deserve marking properly.
Minister of State Alvin Tan met residents at MND and then agreed to walk the section of forest currently proposed for housing. Later that same day, Clementi MP David Hoe walked the same ground. Some things cannot be read off a map or an EIA report — they have to be stood in. We’re grateful both made the time.
In Parliament, the questions residents have been asking are now being asked where they must be answered.
MP David Hoe has filed a Parliamentary Question on whether HDB reassessed the 1980 Master Plan zoning against current biodiversity, climate-resilience and liveability priorities; what alternative brownfield sites were considered, if any; and how trade-offs in housing yield, timing, infrastructure and environmental impact informed the decision. He has said he hopes to raise further questions reflecting what he hears from the ground.
MP Christopher de Souza has filed two Parliamentary Questions and an Adjournment Motion titled “Preservation of Maju Forest”, and Ms Sim Ann has been compiling and responding to residents’ letters. MP Yin Zhoucai has filed questions on whether remaining brownfield capacity is assessed before a greenfield site is committed, and on how HDB’s demand forecasts have compared with actual take-up over ten years. Different site, same questions. Workers’ Party MPs He Ting Ru and Dennis Tan joined a public dialogue at the Handle Bar in Gillman Barracks and have filed questions on consultation timelines, projected demand, and alternative sites including brownfields and ageing low-rise estates.
Responses are expected at the sittings on 4 and 5 August.
MP Edwin Tong also received four young residents at his Meet-the-People Session, who arrived with a written script and their own drawings to make the case for Clementi Forest.
None of those forest visits organised themselves. Thank you to the unsung ones — the residents who mapped the routes, made the introductions and led the walks; the nature guides documenting what actually lives in there; the volunteers taping flyers in lift lobbies. Most of you will never be named, and most of you seem to prefer it that way.
Thank you also to the educators at Bukit Timah preschool whose K2 children wrote to the Prime Minister; to Lara and her siblings who were nervous about meeting “someone so powerful” and went anyway, letters in hand; to the nature lovers and photographers posting what they find; and to those going door to door, quietly, asking for nothing and simply sharing what they know.
Here is the number that matters most. Mothership reports that more than 2,700 people have now submitted official feedback to HDB — already past the roughly 1,800 submissions that shaped Dover Forest’s outcome, with four days still on the clock.
Signatures opened the door. This is us walking through it.
👉 Send HDB your own words before 6 August, 6pm: LINK
Ten sincere lines in your voice beat any form letter. Templates here.
PS : online town hall tonight, 2 August, 8.00–9.30pm: tinyurl.com/majuforest
For the forest,
The Save Maju Forest petition
IG: @savemajuforest