Cut corners led to expensive Magic Road palm tree fiasco

The bugs attacking expensive palm trees on the avenue leading to Hong Kong Disneyland could have been caught if the trees had been subjected to the required stringent quarantine.

But the procedure was bypassed by a government contractor, a source close to the HK$200 million Penny's Bay greening project said.

The palms, imported from Australia, were instead stored on the mainland for a year, exempting them from the requirement, before being imported in 2004, the source said.

"There was not enough space to store the numerous exotic trees imported from many places around the world. The contractor was required to put them in temporary nurseries."

Infested with two destructive pests, 72 palms along Magic Road are dying and have to be replaced. Sixteen of 100 trees originally imported were reportedly found to be infested when they arrived and were burned.

University of Hong Kong ecology expert Professor Jim Chi-yung said moving exotic plants to the mainland was a common way to bypass the quarantine. But he argued the quarantine process itself might have killed off the palms in this case.