Famous City Parks: Bukit Timah Nature Preserve, Singapore

The Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is a small 400 acre nature reserve near the geographic centre of the city-state of Singapore, located on the slopes of Bukit Timah Hill, Singapore's highest hill standing at a height of 500 feet, and parts of the surrounding area. The nature reserve is about 9 miles from the Downtown Core, Singapore's central business district.

Despite its small size, it is considered one of the most productive pieces of nature. Alfred Russel Wallace also thought highly of the place. Together with the neighbouring Central Catchment Nature Reserve, it houses over 840 species of flowering plants and over 500 species of fauna. Today, it is one of the largest patches of primary rainforest left in Singapore. The forest reserve was formally declared as an ASEAN Heritage Park on 18 October 2011.

The name Bukit Timah is borrowed from the tallest hill found in the area of the same name, which is also the tallest geographical location in all of Singapore. Bukit means hill in the Malay language, while Timah means tin, although tin deposits are not found in the area. The hill served as a granite quarry for many years, but since the mid-1900s, all operations of which has since been abandoned and converted into recreational areas and even filming locations.

In 1882, Nathaniel Cantley, then Superintendent of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, was commissioned by the Government of the Straits Settlements to prepare a report on the forests of the settlements. On Cantley's recommendation, several forest reserves were created on Singapore island over the next few years. Bukit Timah was one of the first forest reserves established in 1883.

All the reserves were worked for timber with the exception of Bukit Timah Reserve. By 1937, the forest reserves were depleted under economic pressures for development. However, three areas, including the Bukit Timah Reserve, were retained for the protection of flora and fauna under the management of the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

In 1951, further protection of the reserves were provided by the enactment of a Nature Reserves Ordinance and the establishment of a Nature Reserves Board for the administration of the reserves, now designated as nature reserves, which total some 11 square miles in area.

Today, the nature reserves are set aside for the propagation, protection and preservation of the indigenous flora and fauna of Singapore under the National Parks Act and are managed by the National Parks Board.

The primary activities at Bukit Timah are strolling, running and hiking. There are also smaller groups of people who rock-climb and abseil at the Dairy Farm quarry as well as mountain biking. There are specially-allocated mountain-bike trails around the area and Bukit Timah Mountain Bike (MTB) Trail  is located within the Reserve. The 6.5 KM MTB trail loop around Bukit Timah Hill and stretched between Hinhinde Park and Dairy Farm Road. The trail represent a tropical rocky terrain with extended technical climbs and difficult descent at short intervals. For MTB Map trail rating, it is largely made up of black diamond sections with intermittent blue square sections. There are also short alternative double black diamond sections.

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