The Great Wall of Fanling
Due to container storage, rural farmlands also suffer from the “wall effect” that traps heat, writes June Ng.
Approach the mainland border through Man Kam To Road and you’re in for a surprise.
Where there should be an extensive green field one finds container storage sites along the road. It’s all thanks to a lawsuit won by the rural assembly Heung Yee Kuk in 1983, which guarantees indigenous people the right to turn their land into open storage areas—in other words, cheap container yard spaces.
A great wall of containers has been erected near Hung Kiu Sun Tsuen in Sheung Shui. According to critics, the wall, which is about 200 by 800 meters and 10 storeys high, has blocked two sides of the neighboring farmland, preventing the crops from getting the sunlight and airflow they need. Kim Ching of the Hong Kong Critical Geography Group is working on a documentary about the changes in the New Territories. He says local residents told him that the wall was “built” at the end of last year, and that the original container storage site area had been expanded into the farmland area.
What’s most shocking is the container storage area located within the official greenbelt zone marked out in the Town Planning Board’s Outline Zoning Plan in 2007. It turns out that the government’s regulations regarding the zone only required owners to file applications for change of land use after 1991. Any areas that were turned into storage sites before that time could remain the same, which basically crippled the function of the entire zoning plan.
In addition to the crops not getting enough sunlight, another consequence of having such a container wall next to the farmland is that the latter suffers from immense flooding problems during the rainy season. One local resident, Mr. Cheung, has been farming there for 50 years, and he says that where the container wall was situated there used to be a wetland, and that in the past water there would drain easily towards the river. But now, because of the container wall, all the water flows back to the farmland and damages his produce.
The farmers did complain to the Lands Department. And while the officials who came down to check the site said they could build a pipe to drain the water away, they never addressed whether the container storage site had been illegally expanded. Indeed, after that, the Lands Department sent a written reply to say that the land was private land bound by a block lease, and that having containers there “does not violate the terms of the lease.”