It seems that every few months a new and equally alarming report on the polluted state of the waters in our region is released. Decades of rapid economic growth have brought the kind of environmental degradation now being reported, most recently by the Guangdong Marine Geological Survey Department.
As part of the study, satellite images from 1977 were compared with those from 1999. Not surprisingly, they showed heavy damage in four main areas: Shenzhen Bay between Hong Kong and Shenzhen, Dachang Bay west of Shenzhen, Jiaoyi Bay near Humen, and Zhuhai Bay near Zhuhai and Macau. The evidence also points to an 18 per cent reduction in the sea area at the mouth of the Pearl River Delta, which covers all of these bays. The report attributes the problem to illegal dumping, aggressive reclamation and unbridled development. It also predicts that the entire sea area at the mouth of the Pearl River could disappear within 70 to 100 years. It should not take such dire scenarios to get our attention, or to provoke a response.
Two of the four worst-affected bays fall between radically different jurisdictions - Hong Kong, Macau and the special economic zones of Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Add to these findings recent studies warning about diminishing fish stocks, endangered species and how the delta's waters have become generally inhospitable to marine life - much less human use. The result should add urgency to cross-border efforts to deal with the marine pollution problem.
The good news is that the regularity of the reports coming from Guangdong environmental authorities and a 45 billion-yuan World Bank-supported plan to improve water quality in the Pearl River and its tributaries over the next eight years are signs that the will to address the issue exists.
If anything, the goal of improving the quality of water unsuitable for irrigation, aquaculture or recreation to a point where it can be used for industrial and recreational purposes should be seen as an interim step.
More ambitious plans should be targeted, though they would only be feasible in the context of real and sustained regional co-operation.