Over recent years, children have planted thousands of trees on slopes above Wang Tong outside Mui Wo on Lantau to beautify the countryside, preserve a delicate natural balance and teach the rising generation about environmental values.
Today, those slopes are scarred and devastated, stripped naked, scorched and barren of life thanks to irresponsible and criminally negligent grave sweepers who, during the Chung Yeung Festival last month, sparked a bushfire.
What have the children learned from their years of tree planting? Probably that in Hong Kong, caring for the environment is a total waste of time. Why bother to dig and sweat and toil to restore the ecology when delinquent worshippers twice yearly set the countryside ablaze?
On Chung Yeung Festival day, weary firemen toted up 123 bushfires that destroyed 6,172,247 square metres of precious bushland. During the Ching Ming Festival in April, 84 fires swept through 2,283,769 square metres of hillsides. About 96 per cent of the charred land is outside country parks, making it the responsibility of local district offices.
These are shameful figures. What makes this reprehensible situation even more dishonourable is that it is easily preventable. Every rural district office, notably those of Sha Tin, Sai Kung, Tai Po, Islands and North District, knows precisely the locations of graves. The district officers know the names of the dead and they know the families who go to worship them, to carelessly light offerings and create the annual disgrace.
Do they take any meaningful action to prevent these very predictable disastrous fires that are written in red on every calendar? The short answer is no, they do little or nothing. They are derelict in their duties.
Home Affairs Secretary Patrick Ho Chi-ping should haul them over the coals. There were seven hill fires in country parks during Chung Yeung, destroying 27 hectares. How many prosecutions? None. Zero. Zilch.
