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Photo Essay: Speaking of Country Matters
Photographer and writer Edward Stokes asks if the debate about rezoning country parkland for housing spells danger for our protected areas, and if a better solution can be found.
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To explore the Hong Kong countryside is to delight in its complex, surprising landscapes. There are rugged uplands, sylvan valleys and a coastline of endless intricacy. Almost everywhere hillsides offer exhilarating vistas of spurs and ridges, ravines and gullies, cliffs and promontories, bays and islands. Elsewhere, panoramas look out from hillsides onto tower blocks packed with people. Often a scene encompasses both “country” and “city”: jagged ridgelines, precipitous slopes, deep valleys—and, by far-below coastal strips, the densely crowded residential districts.
Of the total mainland and island area of Hong Kong, an internationally remarkable 40 percent is protected in 24 country parks, almost all of them established in the late 1970s. In few other places does wild nature exist so close to a metropolis. What other Asian city has sheer mountains rearing up right beside its harbor?
Anywhere in the world flora and fauna, and landscapes, should be protected for their intrinsic value. But some have recently suggested that country park fringe areas be developed for housing. Hong Kong has an overriding need to ensure the welfare of its people. In this crowded city, that means more than providing living space. It also means preserving areas where anyone can escape into the reviving outdoors. Above all, it is for Hongkongers that the country parks should remain sacrosanct.
But at the moment, we are not making the right choices. We should be extending country parks in ecologically rich places: such as remote or “village enclave” areas. Given this, we could make controlled, compensating cuts into the margins of a few country parks near urban areas, which would allow for housing development, thus retaining the SAR’s visionary 40 percent ratio of protected land while still providing living space for its population.
The New Territories has very large areas of under-developed, ill-used land—primarily sprawled over with “small house policy” village homes. This squandering of land is lamentable and bizarre. It is land that could be used for well planned,environmentally sensitive housing. This can only be realized if anachronistic laws and attitudes about “indigenous villager rights” are squarely tackled—which would bring to the fore the need to better house the urban population, and also promote social equality in our living spaces.
Then Hong Kong will have become an international model for urban living and conservation. The government must find the will to make this happen: to create a place for all Hongkongers, both rich and poor, both urban and rural, to cherish. These photos tell the story of how that could be accomplished.
Edward Stokes is the photographer and author of numerous books on Hong Kong’s countryside, including “Hong Kong Nature Landscapes” (HKUP, 2010). He is Founder and Publisher of The Photographic Heritage Foundation, a not-for-profit publisher of local nature and heritage publications: www.photo-heritage.com
Shek O
Hong Kong Island’s dramatic coast is nowhere more beautiful than around Shek O. In this picture, Shek O headland frames the islet of Ng Fan Chau. The rocks are fractured and hollowed, sculpted by the sea, and filled with sand periodically thrown up by storm waves. When late afternoon light etches its rocks, Shek O is a visual delight.
Yet in contemplating this image I also saw, strewn about the rocks, a mess of picnickers’ rubbish: plastic bags, barbecue prongs and more. I cleaned it up before taking this photo. Not far to the north, I knew, was a beautiful pebble cove actually called Lap Sap Wan—literally, “Rubbish Bay.” The unsightly mess at this site was simply the leftovers of some mindless visitors. The marine rubbish at Lap Sap Wan, and at many similar places, is part of a much greater problem: the rubbishing of Hong Kong’s coastline by litter, most of it washed off from land sources, or from the fishing fleet. Large, properly designed rubbish trawling catamarans could solve the problem easily.
Tiu Tang Lung
Tiu Tang Lung—at 416m Plover Cove peninsula’s highest peak—overlooks Double Haven harbor, seen here between the mainland and islands in the distance. A marine park, Double Haven lies beside Mirs Bay, which stretches into the background. I had climbed Tiu Tang Lung twice before I took this midsummer photograph. But on each prior occasion air pollution veiled Double Haven, robbing it of brilliant light and diminishing its natural grandeur.
Months later, after summer rain had washed out the pollution, the air became crystal clear. The ground steaming from recent rain, I hiked out again to Tiu Tang Lung. My ascent, beneath brilliant stars and up a dangerous slope, was exhilarating—the pre-dawn colors were unforgettable. But I mourned that Hong Kong’s society and government had not resolved to reverse air pollution. Air quality measures now coming into force promise well. But they have come extremely late, at great cost to Hong Kong.
Kop Tong
Kop Tong, an old Hakka hamlet, lies in the remote north-east of the Plover Cove peninsula. Some hikers pass by but, like many such abandoned villages, Kop Tong has been lost to time. Once it was surrounded by productive terraced fields, which today lie buried under natural regrowth. As Kop Tong’s human population and agricultural meaning have declined, its ecological significance has increased. Such valleys, recolonized by native species, are increasingly important to Hong Kong’s lowland biodiversity
Like many other similar villages, Kop Tong lies in a “village enclave” area—and so is excluded from its surrounding country park. When the parks were established, places like Kop Tong had remnant agricultural meaning. Today there is none. Incorporating them into the wider ecological and heritage purpose of the country parks makes very good sense.
Lamma Island
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