Q Should organisations be stopped from chopping down any more trees?
I watched a TV news documentary over the weekend concerning the destruction of trees in Hong Kong and was very disturbed.
I do not have any expert knowledge on trees and environmental protection but I always love being in a green environment. I am lucky that the neighbourhood I am living in has quite a number of healthy trees. One of them even has squirrels living in it. With the increasing environmental awareness in Hong Kong, I would have thought it was commonsense that our trees should be well protected for the betterment of our air quality and overall environmental well-being.
When I watched the documentary, I was really furious and heartbroken to see how the members of the owners' committee of a Tuen Mun housing estate paid to have all the trees in their estate brutally severely pruned, leaving them standing there without a single leaf. I burst into tears. How can people be so ignorant and so cruel? The most outrageous part was when a spokesman of a nearby school praised the operation. He said that the school had initially been surrounded by trees.
After the trees were chopped, the name of the school can now be seen. So to him, it is more important to have the name of the school displayed than having the students surrounded by the nice, healthy trees. I think he should be ashamed of what he said. What can we expect from our next generation if the educational personnel have such a low level of environmental awareness?!
I also feel sorry for the residents of that Tuen Mun estate. They love their trees and objected to the owners' committee's decision to chop them. However, none of the government departments paid any attention to them and the district councillors were equally ignorant in supporting the destruction.