Managed to compose self and sent this rant out on 30 Oct. looks like it won’t see light of day in the mass media.

Meanwhile: Eco-friendly resort with unrivalled attractions promised by Eighth Wonder – I’m still not buying it.

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The drive towards IR is slowly heating up, capturing Singaporeans’ excitement for the most part. But while Miss Yin says “Just show us the money” (TODAY, 24 Oct), animal welfare groups and concerned individuals are saying “Show us the ecological bill.”

No doubt IRs are exciting: with their high-profile speciality in entertainment and leisure, it is easy to see why the government is betting on them (pun half-intended). And the media coverage the bidders’ proposals created such a buzz, my interest was piqued.

But the plans to include whale sharks, dolphins and even beluga whales quailed my excitement in a second. The case, as presented by welfare groups and concerned Singaporeans, is clear for keeping these marine animals where they belong – in the ocean.

One bidder responded that their whale sharks “would likely be pups purchased from fishermen — “rescued” on their way to slaughterhouses”. The operative word “likely” worries me. The likelier scenario would be fishermen actively hunting for whale sharks once it’s known that the IR operator for Sentosa is looking to fill its tanks with them.

Already, sharks are being decimated at a rate of 73 million a year to satisfy the gluttonous Chinese palate. The thought of more sharks being injured and killed in the name of filling a fish tank in Sentosa is unpalatable.

Demand drives supply. A 30 Aug article on the website, AustralianNews.com, talks of how poachers decimate populations of newly discovered species, destroying the environment in the process, because collectors with a penchant for rare, exotic species are willing to pay.

It is also impractical and inhumane to display arctic animals in tropical Singapore. When even the vaulted Singapore Zoological Gardens has announced the phasing out of their polar bear exhibit, I hope the Beluga whales Kerzner-CapitaLand is referring to are robotic.

Dolphin exhibits are another headsmacker. In the wild, they form close-knit family groups called pods, and know and remember relations, from grandparents to distant cousins. The process of acquiring and preparing dolphins to be cooped up in a tank and perform tricks for our laughs is a long, ardous, painful one. Pods are destroyed in the capture process. Injuries and deaths dog the captured dolphins. Most will die in the training process, and those who survive rarely live beyond a few years. This makes the ’smile’ we see on a dolphin’s face even more ironic. (www.bluevoice.org)

The impact to wildlife and the ocean ecology doesn’t stop there. In light of reports that the world’s coral reef systems could collapse in 20 years, how will Kerzner-CapitaLand fulfil its plan for “the world’s largest living coral reef, The Coral Lagoon” without accelerating the collapse?

Indonesia’s haze affects all of South-East Asia. The impact of the Boxing Day tsunami, 2004 was amplified by widespread mangrove swamp and coral reef destruction. Clearly, environmental destruction has far-reaching effects on everybody and should not be swept under the carpet.

One of the IR bidders’ partners said “We’ve to have a wider perspective. In the wild, whale sharks are caught and eaten, sold for food. They do not have an easy life.”

To that, I say the wider perspective would be to recognise that it doesn’t mean we should worsen it just because we can.

By all means, show us the money. But show us the ecological bill too.