Abandoned Hong Kong island gets new life as heritage site and ecotourism destination

A 20-minute boat ride from Sai Kung pier, the tiny island of Yim Tin Tsai now teems with activity on weekends. Most are day-trippers exploring the old Hakka settlement, but others are workers harvesting salt from resurrected salt pans.

The scene is a far cry from six years ago, when its many deserted fields and dilapidated village houses gave the island an air of abandonment. Descendants of the original villagers hope that reviving the salt pans that once helped to sustain Yim Tin Tsai (Cantonese for Little Salt Pan) will give the historical settlement’s ecotourism business some added buzz.

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A Hakka group from Yantian, the Chan clan, first settled on the island during the 19th century. In 1864, Catholic priests began evangelising among the villagers and by 1875 everyone on the island was baptised. Yim Tin Tsai even had its own chapel, St Joseph’s, a Romanesque structure built on a donated plot in 1890.

But as rural life became increasingly difficult, the community dwindled and by 1998 the last member of the Chan clan had moved out and ferry services ceased. Yim Tin Tsai might have decayed into a pile of rubble over time, but in 2004 the Catholic Church conducted extensive renovations of St Joseph’s Chapel that inspired villagers and conservationists to embark on a campaign to revive the settlement.

Six years ago they began offering ecotourism tours to Yim Tim Tsai in collaboration with private boat operators. The village school, which was built in 1920 and closed in 1997, has been turned into a heritage centre for visitors, and the old salt pans – comprising four pools for evaporation of seawater and one for crystallisation – were put back into production at the end of last year.

But the full revitalisation programme was completed a few months ago after the roads were paved in July, says village chief Colin Chan Chung-yin.