THE PRESENCE OF a critically endangered species of bird in a brackish swamp off Coloane Island has triggered a lively debate on environmental issues in Macau.
According to bird watchers, a flock of about three dozen black-faced spoonbills regularly spend the winter in the small wetland at the island's Stone Row Bay, which is known locally as Seac Pai Van.
Only an estimated 600 of this species, which is related to the ibis, still survive in the world and ornithologists warn that it faces a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the immediate future. Although the birds have long wintered on rocks off the Korean peninsula, as well as Hong Kong, Taiwan and Vietnam it was only recently that they also started stopping off in Macau.
The crux of the problem is that their chosen refuge in Macau has been earmarked for land reclamation. The Macau Government claims the area is nothing but a polluted pond resulting from the construction of dykes and roads in the area.
Its Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Ao Man-long, has pledged to create a wetland nature reserve nearby that would offer the rare birds a new 'environmentally correct' winter habitat.
A loosely organised group of activists - mostly middle-class 'greenies' from Macau and diehard bird watchers from Hong Kong - are up in arms over the Government's stance on the issue. A so-called 'Joint Declaration on the Rescue of the Seac Pai Van wetland and the Black-faced Spoonbills' maintains that the 'world will suffer an important loss of natural resources' if the Government redevelops 'this green property asset'.
The declaration calls on the Government to establish a wetland protection zone in the area and to adopt special measures to protect the black-faced spoonbills from extinction.