WWF in plea over border zone habitat
Hoo Hok Wai is a conservation area but activists fear that it could be wrecked by development
Conservation group WWF has raised concerns over the preservation of natural habitat on land that was previously part of the restricted border zone between Hong Kong and the mainland.
An entry restriction was lifted and 710 hectares of land between the Lok Ma Chau Control Point and Ng Tung River was opened up to public access in June.
It includes Hoo Hok Wai, home to rare birds and animals.
Under current zoning rules, 200 hectares of Hoo Hok Wai land lying to the northwest of Sheung Shui is designated as a conservation area, but WWF Hong Kong conservation officer Tobi Lau Shiu-keung said the zoning did not provide enough protection.
"More than one-third of the site is privately owned and we are worried the habitat in Hoo Hok Wai will eventually be threatened by development or infrastructure building," Lau said.
The area includes 122 hectares of large fishponds that are home to many rare water birds, such as black-faced spoonbills and imperial eagles. It is also home to endangered animals like Eurasian otters, populations of which the International Union for Conservation of Nature says are in decline.
Lau said merely designating the territory as a wetland conservation area could protect the fish ponds, as any nearby development would then require an environmental impact assessment.
There are about 21 households in a village at Hoo Hok Wai, and all rely on fishing for a living.
Villager Kwok For-yau, 60, runs a fish farming business with six ponds covering an area of about seven hectares, and said his landlord was looking "very carefully" at the situation, having agreed only a short-term lease rather than a decade-long one.
"If the zoning is changed, the landlord will probably sell the land to big developers," he said.
He said that since the area was zoned as a conservation area and opened up to public access, visitors had flooded in and had been a considerable nuisance.
The restricted zone was established in 1951. In 2008, the government announced a plan to reduce the zone's size from some 2,800 hectares to about 400 hectares in three stages. The latest lifting of the entry restriction is the second phase of that plan.
