On a recent trip, Mongabay board member Debby Ng shared a story that keeps replaying in my mind. It’s been 19 years since her account, but it still cuts raw. I’m sharing it because I’ve witnessed losses like this too.
Debby had joined a team of scientists from the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity to salvage what they could before Terumbu Bayan — a reef off southern Singapore — was “reclaimed” to expand a petrochemical complex. But their mission was more than a rescue: it was to bear witness to the final moments of countless lives.
This is based on Debby’s recollections during our conversation and her blog post from that time.
Terumbu Bayan (“Clear Water Reef”) once pulsed with life.
There, tucked in the gentle sway of a sea anemone, a pair of false clownfish guarded their brood: tiny slivers of life, their eyes just beginning to gleam with the promise of tomorrow.
Watched by a friendly diver documenting their existence—so soon to vanish—the mother clownfish fought fiercely, nipping at the intruding hands trying to photograph her. Brave, desperate, unaware her courage couldn’t save her world from what was coming.
Then came the machines.
Debby and the team were underwater when they heard the horn—a shrill, urgent blast—calling them hurriedly to the surface. As they broke through, rocks tumbled into the sea, each crash a burial beneath a tidal wave of sediment and ambition. The reef was torn apart in the name of reclamation, stitching new land between islands.
The baby clownfish never had a chance. Nor did the cowries brooding their eggs, the slow-moving topshells, whip shrimp clinging to their last anchors, or sea slugs flung into rushing currents. The giant corals—older than memory—were crushed. No one came for them.
People say fish can swim away. Maybe a few did. Most stayed, trusting the reef, trusting the only home they had — until it smothered them.
Debby’s story haunts me because it isn’t just about a reef, or a few lost creatures. It’s about how easily we erase entire worlds — not by accident, but by choice.
There is no clear water left at Terumbu Bayan. No second chances. No fixing it.
Only the memory of what was, the silence of all we didn’t save, and the knowledge that they were here — and that we let them slip away.
Debby’s story reminds me: memory itself becomes an act of defiance. Even if their lives are lost, we can remember that they lived — that they mattered.
Coastal shallows around the world continue to be filled, trawled, and dredged in the name of “progress,” often with little acknowledgment that these “reclaimed” lands may themselves be reclaimed by the rising seas.
But there are small victories. In some places, communities have fought to protect the shallows. Even in Singapore, practices are changing, with greater efforts to reduce the ecological damage of reclamation.
Still, it’s hard not to think about the family of clownfish.
🌊 World Ocean Day is June 8
