( Source: Alphonsus Chern, Straits times photos)
Central Catchment Nature Reserve, which sometimes also referred as MacRitchie, is the largest nature reserve in Singapore. It covers an area of around 28.8km2, which is the size of 17.5 Bukit Timah Nature Reserve!
( Source: Wikimedia commons)
The Central Catchment Nature Reserve is our large green lung located at the heart of Singapore, supplying us with oxygen to live on and removing the undesirable greenhouse gases. Not only so, it houses 4 of our nation’s main reservoirs (MacRitchie Reservoir, Upper Seletar Reservoir, Upper Peirce Reservoir and Lower Peirce Reservoir), that supply water to our houses and act as water catchment for these reservoirs. The nature reserve also has the ability to act as filter and trap sediments from freshwater streams so as to ensure the quality of water that flows into these reservoirs.
MacRitchie Reservoir (source: Eugene Phoen)
Upper Seletar Reservoir (source : awee_19)
Upper Peirce Reservoir (source: Eugene Phoen)
Lower Peirce Reservoir (source: Ravenblack7575)
It also contains various tourist attractions such as the Singapore Zoo, Night Safari and River Safari.
(source: florasingapura.com)
Unfortunately, most of its primary forests has been cleared for logging and cultivation. The nature reserves now consist of secondary forests and small patches of primary forests. However, out of these few small patches of primary forests, it contains an extremely rare forest type in Singapore – the primary freshwater swamp forest. This rare forest is named the Nee Soon freshwater swamp forest and has allowed us to have a wider variety of plant and animal species.