Dolphins offered a 'phoney' deal over Hong Kong airport's third runway

Measures proposed in the Airport Authority's environmental impact assessment of the airport's planned third runway - due for release today - are unlikely to compensate for the loss of dolphin habitat, a conservation group says.

In particular, the Dolphin Conservation Society describes as "phoney" a proposal for a new marine park area to be established after the runway's completion in 2023. The society said yesterday that the planned reclamation for the runway would gobble up 650 hectares of sea used by the rare Chinese white dolphin. As a result, 70 per cent of an estimated 65 dolphins that belong to the northern social cluster of dolphins north of Chek Lap Kok would be at direct risk from reclamation work, it said.

Society chairman Dr Samuel Hung Ka-yiu said the reclamation area was a major travelling corridor for dolphins roaming to and from feeding grounds between the Brothers Islands and the Sha Chau and Lung Kwu Chai Marine Park.

The runway expansion would also force the dolphins north and into busy shipping lanes used by high-speed vessels, Hung added.

The report is set to propose the merging of the Sha Chau marine park with a new one east of the runway after its completion in 2023 but the society dismissed this as a "phoney" attempt at compensation.

"Designating this marine park in 2023 will be too late and the damage will already be done. It will not help bring the dolphins back."