Brian Morton, 64, who retired as professor of marine ecology at the University of Hong Kong last year, has been awarded the Duke of Edinburgh Conservation Medal in recognition of the 30 years he spent working to protect the city's coastal ecology. He is pictured receiving the award from Prince Philip.
I talked with the Duke of Edinburgh for a long time at the awards ceremony. He's very knowledgeable about conservation and very knowledgeable about Hong Kong. He came out in 1981 to open WWF [Word Wide Fund for Nature] Hong Kong, and he came out again a few years later when the Mai Po Nature Reserve was set up.
The award I have been given is good for Hong Kong. I wouldn't have been given it if we hadn't set up parks and reserves here. I was one of the founding people for the WWF in Hong Kong and did the initial research in the coral areas.
I first arrived in Hong Kong in 1970. It was a big shock to come out to Hong Kong and see how little was known at that time, and just finding out how rich in terms of marine biology Hong Kong is.
That discovery was both the biggest advantage and the biggest challenge. Nobody knew the corals were there. Nobody dived, nobody snorkelled. In 1970 there wasn't even a diving club. There were hardly any roads in many parts of the New Territories. I can remember seeing corals for the first time in places like Hoi Ha Wan and it was amazing.
If I could go back to the 1970s would I do anything differently? Definitely not. The original research in the 1970s was what determined where the important areas were so the parks at Mai Po, Hoi Ha and Cape D'Aguilar were set up.
I produced thousands of graduates and hundreds of postgraduates. The work we did was important in the sense that it laid the foundations from which marine parks would develop. It was not an idle whim that created places like Mai Po and Hoi Ha. It was based on science. We identified the conservation hot spots.
