Singapore's reputation as a Garden City had not come easy for this small island. What started out as a Tree Planting Campaign to green Singapore some forty years ago has transformed beyond providing just a green infrastructure. It has created recreational experiences and lifestyles in our Garden City and at the same time, helped safeguard the many vital elements of our natural heritage.

This year's Care-for-Nature stamp series aptly named the Garden City series, is dedicated to help promote our Garden City and further its growth by raising funds to help protect our parklands.

HSBG, in partnership with the National Parks Board, will use the proceeds from the sale of the HSBC Collector's Cover and Limited Stamp Print Collection to fund a research project that will not only help ascertain the environmental value of Singapore's urban forests, but hopefully how they can further enhance our quality of life.

This important research will help determine the exact role Singapore's greenery plays in combating pollution on our island. It will also further explore how much of the pollution caused by the city's factories, offices, homes and 600,000 vehicles is removed by our urban forests and through these findings, help guide our policies and practices to enable our urban forests to do even more.

Featured in this year's Care-for-Nature stamp series are four major parks of key elements of our Garden City: Singapore Botanic Gardens (For Local Addresses Only), Fort Canning Park (60c), Marina City Park ($1) and Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve ($1). To be released on the 22 Oct 2003, you can pick the following products on this special issue at all Singapore Post branches on that day:

1. Mint gummed back stamps (set of 4 designs) 2. Pre-cancelled First Day Cover 3. Presentation Pack 4. Self-adhesive stamp booklet with 10 NVI stamps

As with past issues, HSBC will also be releasing both its Care-for-Nature Collector's Cover and Limited Edition Stamp Print Collection for sale. At $9.90, the Care-for-Nature Collector's Cover is exclusively pre-cancelled with the official first day of issue date stamp and a specially designed Care-for-Nature cachet. There is also the 500 sets of Limited Edition Stamp Print Collection which comes in complete sets of 4-in-1 or Set-of-4 stamp prints. At $88 and $198 respectively, these prints come with profiles of all parks featured on the stamps, first day of issue date stamp, autograph of the artist and a serialised certificate of authenticity.