Officials urged to clean up remote Hong Kong islands and waters before marine park designation

Green group’s visit to littered South Soko Island three months after large-scale collision of two vessels prompts call for stepped-up efforts

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Domestic waste washes ashore at the Soko Islands year-round, the green group WWF Hong Kong said. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

Published: 9:30am, 13 Nov 2017Updated: 10:38am, 13 Nov 2017

Protection of a future marine park in Hong Kong’s southern waters should be stepped up, a green group urged after its inspection found piles of coastal litter including remains of a palm oil spill three months ago.

A visit to the Soko Islands last Monday by WWF Hong Kong revealed dozens of sticky, untreated clumps of the oil left after a collision between two vessels in the Pearl River Delta in August as well as heaps of trash ranging from food packaging to plastic disposables that had washed ashore.

The government plans to designate the islands, located southwest of Lantau Island, and surrounding waters a marine park by 2019. The idea is to protect the habitat of the rare Chinese white dolphin, the population of which has dwindled in Hong Kong waters from 87 in 2010/11 to 47 in 2016/17, according to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.

Traces of palm oil on the shore. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

“The waters off the Soko Islands are the only place in Hong Kong that both Chinese white dolphins and finless porpoises call home,” Samantha Lee Klaus, a WWF oceans conservation manager, said.

“The washed-up marine litter shows a lot of it is still in the sea, potentially choking, entangling and killing sea animals,” she added. “It is a difficult but necessary task for the government to clean up the coastline before it is designated a marine park.”

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