In a temporary headquarters erected amid the lush foliage that still surrounds parts of the Ho Chung River, more than a dozen men square off around a large table in an atmosphere more boardroom than bucolic. Phones buzz, fingers jab at charts and diagrams and voices are raised. It might just be the most action this tranquil corner of Sai Kung has ever seen.
The Ho Chung Valley is one of the lesser-known front lines in the government's battle to reshape Hong Kong without incurring the wrath of the city's residents. It is the larger, more ambitious attempts to remodel the city that spark the most vociferous protests - think the relocation of Queen's Pier, the ongoing Victoria Harbour reclamation and the redevelopment of the ex-police married quarters in Central. But every day, work continues on dozens of smaller projects that, collectively, will have a profound impact on Hong Kong's landscape, particularly in rural areas.
The effects of these 'improvements' are already obvious to anyone visiting the country parks: retaining walls prop up hillsides; paved paths and metal railings snake up remote peaks; concrete drainage channels slice through valleys and forests. According to the Home Affairs Department, funds disbursed under its rural public works programme, which aims to 'upgrade the infrastructure and improve the living environment' in countryside areas, reached HK$122 million this year. The Drainage Services Department (DSD) says annual spending on flood-prevention works, which has averaged HK$500 million to HK$700 million since 2000, will surge this financial year to about HK$1.5 billion - enough to buy a lot of concrete.
With so many projects underway, people are taking notice and the authorities have had to fine-tune an approach to rural development that has rarely been questioned. The Ho Chung gathering, which includes more than a dozen officials and engineers, is taking place largely for the benefit of one man: long-term Sai Kung resident Eric Taylor, who, horrified by the DSD's ongoing attempt to widen the Ho Chung River, launched a campaign against the work in the press.
In a letter that appeared in the South China Morning Post on February 14, Taylor called the department the 'most prolific destroyer' of Hong Kong's riparian environments and argued its 'vandalism' in Sai Kung had driven away native flora and fauna, such as the nesting kingfisher and barking deer. The department's response was swift and relatively genial; Taylor would be welcome to visit the Ho Chung work site so its engineers could justify what they were doing on the spot.
When the meeting moves outdoors, it's easy to see why Taylor is upset. The Ho Chung River spills from Sai Kung's wooded peaks and winds past a rusting water station, Ho Chung Village and the historic Che Kung Temple on its 1.6km journey to the ocean. A road already hemmed the river in on one side; the other was covered by a patchwork of drooping trees, flowers and thick grass. But not any more. Along a 600-metre stretch of the waterway, diggers have carved up the bank, breaking it down to unruly heaps of earth and rubble. The trees have gone and the river laps forlornly at piles of rocks and a half-finished retaining wall.
Tarpaulin barriers have been erected to spare nearby houses some of the noise and dust kicked up by construction. On this quiet, misty morning, the work looks like an act of wanton destruction.