Valuable trees fall victim to focused care amid shortage of inspectors
Heritage label on old trees may be doing more harm than good as inspectors on stretched resources pay more attention to removing them
The alarming rate at which ailing heritage trees are felled is due to the government's lack of preventive steps to boost the health of the trees, tree specialists believe.
Frontline inspectors argue, however, that they face an acute manpower shortage and cannot possibly check every single tree.
The question is how to protect the 400-odd Old and Valuable Trees (OVTs) left on a government register, after the South China Morning Post found the city had been losing 10 such trees a year on average since a Tree Management Office was set up in 2010, against six trees a year before its formation.
One of the office's 10 advisers, Professor Jim Chi-yung, said the office tended to seek advice on removing a heritage tree rather than on improving its health.
"The very purpose of designating trees as Old and Valuable Trees [since 2004] is to recognise their outstanding status and to provide outstanding care," he said. "Very unfortunately … instead of finding the best and most innovative solutions to treat or ameliorate the weaknesses, we … focus on eliminating them.
"In this sense, the OVT designation could denote a curse rather than a blessing."
Fellow tree adviser Ken So Kwok-yin echoed Jim's view.