The uphill battle for our green havens - Hong Kong's country parks

The debate over the future of Hong Kong's country parks has been framed as a battle between homes for wildlife and homes for humans. But a look at the history of the city's green escapes suggests a key reason for their creation is being underplayed.

Secretary for Development Paul Chan Mo-po earlier this month floated the idea of allowing building in the parks, despite Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying's election pledge to preserve them. The parks have since emerged as the latest battleground between conservationists and the administration.

In fact, an internal government report written in 1965 reveals that preserving trees and animals was not foremost in the minds of the visionaries behind the parks. Rather, they were seen as a way to complement the homes of space-squeezed Hongkongers: an escape from the city for people too poor to take an overseas holiday and in need of free recreation.

Statistics from the years since suggest that the theory has become reality. In 2003, the year the severe acute respiratory syndrome swept the city, Hongkongers turned to the parks, with the number of visits up by 900,000 on the previous year. The effect was even more stark in 2008, the year of the financial crisis, which saw the number of country park visits increase by 1.2 million. There were about 12.9 million visits to country parks last year.

The story of the country parks started with the arrival of an American consultant, Professor Lee Talbot of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, at the invitation of colonial governor David Trench.

Talbot, now a world- renowned ecologist, flew, sailed and walked across the city for a month with his wife to plot possible locations for country parks. He has vivid memories of his mission - not least because it almost cost the couple their lives.

"Initially Marty [Talbot's wife] and I surveyed the whole area of Hong Kong from the aircraft of the Hong Kong Auxiliary Air Force," Talbot, 83, tells the Post. "When my plane crashed in the ocean, the press called it 'Hong Kong's first underwater aerial survey'."