Urbanisation, the need for larger port facilities, land reclamation, and the development of tourist resorts and hotels are all taking their toll on mangrove swamps in LEDCs and MEDCs
alike. Singapore, for example, was once an is land almost completely surrounded by mangroves, but its huge infrastructural, housing, port and tourist developments over the last 40 years have left the mangroves restricted to a few peripheral creeks and to nature reserves such as the Sungei Buloh reserve on the north coast of the is land, where boardwalks have been constructed through the swamps.