A group of secondary school students visited Hainan Island recently and discovered the beauty of nature and the true meaning of conservation. The five-day Hainan Butterfly Tour, which was organised by Green Power and Shell, was the final activity of this year's Shell Nature Watch - Butterfly Explore programme. In March, 40 schools each selected a team, comprising one teacher and three students, to take part in a series of educational activities related to butterflies. Then, they had to organise community education events to share what they had learned. The three best teams - Queen's College Old Boys' Association Secondary School, Buddhist Tai Hung College and St Stephen's Church College - won an eco-tour to Hainan Island. There are more than 600 species of butterflies in Hainan Island, more than double the number of species in Hong Kong, mainly due to the greener landscape and lower urbanisation. During the trip, the students visited three national nature reserves including Bawangling, Datian and Jianfengling, all of which are at a different altitude, allowing the students to see a large variety of butterflies. They also fed Hainan Eld's Deer, a protected species which is considered as endangered as the giant panda, Datian Nature Reserve. They learned that the Hainan government has successfully boosted the number of Eld's Deer from several hundreds to more than a thousand. But the students discovered that conservation has challenges. 'Conservation is not a simple task. Increasing the numbers of endangered species is not enough, the capacity of their habitat has to be considered too. The final goal should be helping them adapt to the wild,' said Rachel Chan Hau-ying, 18, of Buddhist Tai Hung College. Chan Man-u, also 18, from St Stephen's Church College said: 'It's hard to believe that people litter in the national conservation zone and that the locals do not see it as a problem.' She said conservation education is urgently needed in Hainan Island. 'Although butterflies are only small insects, we should respect them.' Patrick Lam Chung-yin, 18, agrees. 'Although there are fewer species of butterfly in Hong Kong, there are more organisations promoting conservation,' the Queen's College Old Boys' Association Secondary School student said. He said if people in Hainan do not pay more attention to conservation, the number of butterfly species will drop significantly as the city becomes more developed. Patrick said the students will promote conservation awareness in the community. 'We've realised that it's essential to raise public awareness of conservation. We will continue to organise programmes and encourage the public to protect butterflies.' For more information, visit http://www.greenpower.org.hk