Greens caution against attack

GREEN-MINDED local youths prefer a co-operative rather than confrontational approach towards industrialists engaged in environmentally-destructive businesses.

In the territory's second environmental conference for young people, tertiary students wrote they did not consider antagonising the industrial sector a long-term solution to the problem.

They shared their views with those who attended the Hong Kong Youth Earth Summit '95, organised by Green Power.

City University student Lui Wai-yee said: 'It is hard to carry out environmental protection without the revenue derived from industrial development. Industrialists, however, also need environmental professionals to help them understand environmental policies and laws.' Both Wai-yee and Yip Lai-fong of Lingnan College felt that it was necessary to educate industrialists on the environment in order to achieve co-operation.

'We should help them understand that industry and environmental protection can exist together,' said Lai-fong.

Cheung Ching-yuen of the Chinese University of Hong Kong warned youths against taking a confrontational stand.

If 'industrialists are [pushed] to a critical point, they might resettle their businesses elsewhere (especially in developing countries), leaving behind a society with no industrial means to achieve self-sufficiency' while exposing a new one to the same environmental perils.