Singapore sells itself as an engineered miracle: a dense city that works, where heat, rain, and scarcity are managed rather than endured. Greenery is part of that bargain. Trees soften the concrete and help make the place livable, but they are also a kind of civic language. They signal order, foresight, and the idea that modern life does not have to be hostile to nature.
Keeping that idea honest requires more than landscaping. It depends on citizens who treat the environment as something you participate in, not just consume. In a place where efficiency can crowd out messier forms of public engagement, the most durable gains often come from people who persuade institutions to open their doors, then persuade everyone else to walk through them.
Kirtida Mekani was one of those people. Born in Karnataka, India, she moved to Singapore in 1990 and later became a citizen. She liked to recall the drive from Changi Airport, when she was struck by the greenery and felt, as others have since put it, that a seed had been planted.
Her own interest began earlier, on her family’s farm. As a child she asked why a compost pit in the backyard smelled so bad. A caretaker showed her what it became. The lesson stayed with her: nature could teach, if you took the trouble to watch it.
In 1993 she became the founding executive director of the Singapore Environment Council. Over four years she designed and implemented more than 50 environmental protection and education programs for schools, businesses, and communities. She stepped down, but not away. Much of her work afterward was about building habits and confidence, especially among the young.
Her proudest achievement was the Plant-A-Tree Programme, launched in 2007 with the National Parks Board under the Garden City Fund. The idea met skepticism. She persisted. The results were hard to argue with: more than 76,000 trees planted and more than 100,000 participants.
She served on the Garden City Fund Management Committee and as an ambassador for Community in Bloom, which now supports 1,900 community gardens cared for by 45,000 volunteers. She was also a trustee of the United World College of South East Asia Foundation and co-founded the Biomimicry Singapore Network in 2016.
Her interests ran beyond ecology. She sat on the board of WWF Singapore, served as a trustee of Botanic Gardens Conservation International, and contributed to arts and cultural institutions, including LASALLE College of the Arts and the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. She was an accomplished ceramist who exhibited her work.
In 2015 she received the President’s Award for the Environment, and in 2024 she was inducted into Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame.
In a country that prides itself on planning, she made room for participation. She understood that sustainability is not only a policy goal. It is a practice, repeated until it becomes normal.
Header image: Kirtida Mekani. Photo courtesy of Singapore Women’s Hall of Fame
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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