Hong Kong village's revival hampered by red tape

On a hot and sunny weekday afternoon, the songs of cicadas and birds are the only sounds audible among waterlogged rice paddies in a Plover Cove Country Park enclave. A small power generator can be heard humming in the distance.

The two hectares of pastoral tranquility could have been the backdrop of an old Chinese water brush painting if it were not for the solar-powered electric fencing and green bird-netting set up around the crops.

By August, villagers of Lai Chi Wo will have harvested their third crop of homegrown rice. They expect this summer's yield to surpass the last two.

In a few years, the aim of villagers - with the help of the University of Hong Kong's Kadoorie Institute and funding from HSBC - will be to revive these fields after more than 30 years of abandonment. They also want to revitalise their 400-year-old walled Hakka village and spur a new wave of agricultural, eco and heritage tourism.

But the success depends on whether the government is willing to provide more assistance.

"Villagers have no intention of expanding [the village] zones and there are no small houses here," said Tsang Wai-yip, one of the village's two indigenous inhabitant representatives. "We are not like those villages in Sai Kung, Sha Tin or Yuen Long, building these beautiful village houses to make money. We just want what is best for our village … to restore it."