Fears for Hong Kong butterfly haven after land stripped of greenery

A green group has urged the Hong Kong government to rezone a butterfly hotspot in Tai Po and raise its conservation status after the site was vandalised in late August.

Volunteers working with environment NGO Green Power discovered the damage to Yuen Tun Ha, a green belt zone in Tai Po, during their monthly trip to count butterflies in the area. They discovered an area the size of a soccer pitch, originally covered by greenery, had been cleared of plants while a pond in front of an old ancestral hall had been filled in.

“This is a complex environment with still water, flowering plants and trees, which as a whole, supports high biodiversity,” Kimchi Lo Wing-fung, an assistant senior education and conservation officer with Green Power, said during a site visit.

“We previously recorded more than 100 species of butterflies here, including some species listed as rare by the Agricultural, Fisheries and Conservation Department, along with dragonflies and some amphibians.”

This was not the first time the area had been vandalised. In 2011, villagers poured weed killer and set fire to parts of the land, apparently in preparation for development. Green Power, which also reported the destruction of the area then, said it was likely the damage was done to lower the conservation value of Yuen Tun Ha.