Category: Environment
Rethinking Lantau development
Highlights from submission to the Development Bureau (full submission here).
No Vision, No Data, No Conservation
The decision-making process on Lantau’s future appears to be explicitly designed to exclude community input. From day one LanDAC membership has been almost wholly drawn from the real estate, tourist and logistics industries, along with government political supporters and appointees. The public rightly doubts the genuineness of this ‘consultation.’
The government plan offers no vision for the island: what will it be like to visit, live or work in Lantau in 2026, 2036 or beyond? The report doesn’t say. At the same time it tries to micro-manage tourist development in ways that are counter-productive. Continue reading
Declare independence, save Lantau
Public consultation (or ‘consultation’) on Lantau development is in its final week. On recent evidence it is difficult to believe it will make a difference.
This blog has attended two public forums on Lantau in the past fortnight – one at Hong Kong University and the other one at Pier 8, Central. The way these work is that senior officials turn up, take notes and occasionally answer questions while people tell them what they’re doing wrong. Then they go back to their offices, tick the ‘consultation’ box and life goes on.
Lantau Community Forum, Pier 8
Exhibit A for Lantau is the four years of consultation over the Shek Kwu Chau incinerator that yielded exactly zero changes to the original plan. Continue reading
Sign of the times
This simple sign contains four ideas totally absent from discussions about the future of Lantau:
- The environmentally fragile coastline should be protected
- It is a natural asset for all to enjoy
- It is important that it should be publicly accessible
- Government should be play an active role to ensure 1), 2) and 3)
What it doesn’t say: the coastline should be turned into a frontline economic development zone to support mass tourism.
Enviro Sec shows shallow knowledge of Lantau schemes
Environment Secretary Wong Kam Sing seems to be unaware of the detail of the government’s Lantau development plans.
He told an RTHK interviewer last week that he believed the plans for Lantau South were “primarily” about ecotourism, with “conservation at the core.”
“The environmental impact should be very small,” he added.
Wong did not appear to know that the LanDAC report, issued on January 8, stipulates 14 tourist hot spots around Lantau, including ten in Lantau South (Mui Wo, Tai O, Sunset Peak, Pui O, Cheung Sha, Shui Hau, Tai O Valley, Sokos, Yi O, Fan Lau). Continue reading
Development plans will ‘destroy’ Lantau, green groups warn
A group of environmental and social justice organizations say the sweeping development plans for Lantau violate the vision of earlier governments and will destroy the island’s character.
In a letter to be sent to Chief Executive CY Leung and other officials, they say the proposals in the LanDAC report “will destroy the rural and culture character, the local economy, the natural landscape and the habitats of Lantau.”
The say the advisory committee’s report ignores the existing 2007 Lantau Concept Plan, which stipulates that large-scale tourism and infrastructure projects should be avoided. Continue reading
This is what trashing the wetlands looks like
A Hong Kong judge yesterday gave the go-ahead for a judicial review into the dumping of landfill onto Pui O wetlands.
The core issue is the role of the Environment Protection Department (EPD) in allowing the dumping. The EPD argued that director Annissa Wong had no choice but to let it go ahead.
The dumping has been taking place for more than year. On top of the landfill in one lot (above) the landowner has erected prefabricated huts with water and electricity supply, a septic tank, a paved terrace, outdoor seating, lighting, storage sheds and a fire pit.
Continue reading
High-end living lands in Lantau
At no 20: prime view and a pool
If you’re feeling limited by Lantau’s lifestyle choices you now have a new one – opulent living.
Not one but two high-end housing developments have come on the market in the last six months, exemplifying perhaps South Lantau’s transition from sleepy backwater to development hot spot.
Kelly Merrick from Home Solutions kindly took Lantau Confidential for a tour of White Sands early this month. From her perspective it’s the arrival of much-needed new inventory. “There’s been nothing like this previously on Lantau,” she said.
Election 2015 preview
Whoever said the internet has changed politics never visited Lantau. The battle for Hong Kong’s biggest electoral district is strictly analogue. No Twitter wars here. Issues and platforms are less important in Lantau’s murky politics than patronage, clan loyalties and personal feuds.
The island rural committees dominate both local politics and the Island District Council (IDC). Although the government no longer appoints councillors, rural committee heads are automatically granted seats. As well as the ten elected members the Islands Council will have eight ex officio members from the rural committees – pretty much a lock.
Randy Yu, the rural committee candidate for Lantau and, if he wins, the likely next IDC chairman, should also be a lock. But the retirement of the unlamented Rainbow Wong,the development controversies and the Occupy fallout have made this contest interesting. Continue reading
Trashing the wetlands, with a little help from the EPD
The Environmental Protection Dept has taken time out from authoring the destruction of Shek Kwu Chau to trashing the Pui O wetlands.
The EPD has given the go-ahead for a series of construction waste dumpings on the wetlands. Local residents have logged eight incidents of dumping in recent weeks. Like this one.
Democracy in action (or should that be ‘inaction’?)
On my last visit to LegCo the taxi driver thought it was the High Court and proceeded up the hill past the Shangri-La. He was ex-mainland, but these days you can almost understand the confusion.
This journey was to make my contribution to the waste management ‘debate’. Hong Kong citizens have the right to directly make their argument on issues to an appropriate LegCo committee, in this case the Environmental Panel (wondering: can we do this for the electoral reform bill?). I’ve been thinking about whether this is an admirable exercise in pure democracy or a complete waste of time, but I’ve had to come down in favour of the latter.
Lantau Confidential 