Shenzhen's city government has reclaimed 60 square kilometres of land from the sea since the 1990s, with little public consultation. It plans to reclaim another 50 square kilometres in the next 10 years. Wang Yongjun , former head of the city's Futian Mangrove and Birds Nature Reserve, says 80 per cent of Shenzhen's 270 kilometres of natural coastline has disappeared in the past 30 years. A reclamation project in the east is now destroying 24 of the remaining 54 kilometres. At least 16 reclamation projects are under way along Shenzhen's coast, spread over the Baoan, Nanshan and Yantian districts. They include plans for expressways, airport extensions, new container terminals, a power plant, logistics park, business districts and luxury properties. Mountains near the coast have been razed to fill the sea. The rush to reclaim has environmental and economic consequences, putting further pressure on the city's remaining mangrove habitat, adding to concerns about marine pollution and lowering the value of properties thrown up too rapidly and now subsiding. Last month, thousands of owners of flats in a glitzy west Shenzhen neighbourhood found their luxury homes were sinking again, just a few weeks after the authorities filled cracks in foundations with concrete. Householders in the leaning towers of Baoan, otherwise known as Shum Yip New Shoreline, said they were worried about potential safety risks and the sinking value of their properties, down 10 per cent to 18,000 yuan (HK$20,600) per square metre since cracks began opening up all over buildings and pavements. 'The cracks are huge and people can put their fists inside,' one owner said. 'We don't know what to do and feel the authorities have tried to cover up the scandal without thinking about our safety.' Structural engineers blame the government for cutting corners on reclamation and selling the newly formed land to developers before the ground had settled properly in its rush to recoup its investment. State media say one mu (666 square metres) of land costs 200,000 to 300,000 yuan to reclaim from the sea but the government can sell it for more than 1 million yuan. That's a tempting scenario for governments worn down by compensation negotiations with owners of small properties in central neighbourhoods. It's not just the rich who are suffering from the Shenzhen government's reclamation projects. In the eastern Yantian district, more than 4,000 villagers from 18 small villages in Baguang have been expelled from their homes recently to make way for a seven square kilometre reclamation project that will turn their beautiful bay into an ocean of chemical plants. Villager Wu Shaojian , who runs a seafood restaurant, is refusing to move. He says the reclamation project will destroy the city's last clean coastal waters and cost local fishermen their livelihood. 'Seafood caught in the city's east used to be of premium quality ... but the area has been heavily polluted and it's now not suitable for eating because of the government's shortsighted reclamation and industrial development projects,' he said. 'Baguang is now one of only two places in Shenzhen where fishermen can catch unpolluted seafood, but Shenzhen announced a plan to reclaim land here even before higher authorities approved the prerequisite environmental impact assessment.' Zhou Wei, founder of Shenzhen's Blue Ocean Preserver Association, a local non-governmental organisation, said the reclamation in Baguang would destroy a natural habitat with 20 hectares of rare looking-glass mangrove trees that could date back 500 years, making them the oldest of their kind on the mainland. 'The Shenzhen government is so eager for quick success and instant benefit that they destroyed the city's spectacular coastlines and mangrove forests within three decades for dozens of reclamation and industrial projects,' he said. 'Land reclamation is irreversible. We shouldn't deprive the next generations of those spectacular natural gifts just because the government wanted chemical plants to drive up short-term GDP.' The State Oceanic Administration has long rated Shenzhen's seawater among the nation's most polluted, partly because of reclamation. And Wang said Shenzhen Bay reclamation could pollute Hong Kong waters, with sediment in the area rising more than 30 centimetres in 10 years. 'Sediment could destroy the remaining 300 hectares of mangrove forest in Shenzhen within 60 years if it continues to rise at that speed,' he said. 'Of course sediment will also affect Hong Kong waters. The sea and its ecological system are an entirety, without boundaries.' However, Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department said its monitoring had found no evidence that reclamation in Shenzhen had polluted Hong Kong waters. Very few of Shenzhen's land reclamation projects have been preceded by public consultation and some have even gone ahead without the necessary approval from provincial and national watchdogs. And Shenzhen is just part of a reclamation boom on the mainland. Five years ago, Guangdong set itself a target of reclaiming 146 square kilometres of land - more than five times the area of Macau - by the end of this year. To put that in perspective, construction of Chek Lap Kok Airport in the 1990s involved just over nine square kilometres of reclamation in three and a half years. From the 1850s to 1996, Hong Kong reclaimed 60 square kilometres of land. Besides Guangdong, dozens of municipalities and provinces, including Tianjin , Guangxi , Hainan , Fujian , Jiangsu , Hebei and Shandong , plan to acquire more land through reclamation. Hainan's capital, Haikou , plans to invest 2.8 billion yuan to build a 108-storey luxury hotel on an artificial island. The Shandong city of Yantai plans to spend 10 billion yuan to build 40 square kilometres of artificial islands.
