Hong Kong and Macau_ City Guide (Lonely Planet, 14th Edition) - Andrew Stone [25]
When you finally reach it, Hong Kong’s countryside is very lush, and although only 12% of the land area is forested, some 415 sq km (or 40% of the territory’s total landmass) has been designated as protected country parks. These 23 parks – for the most part in the New Terri-tories and Outlying Islands, but encompassing the slopes of Hong Kong Island too – comprise uplands, woodlands, coastlines, marshes and all of Hong Kong’s 17 freshwater reservoirs. In addition, there are 15 ‘special areas’ (eg Tai Po Kau Nature Reserve), as well as four protected marine parks and one marine reserve.
Hong Kong has an estimated 3100 species of indigenous and introduced plants, trees and flowers, including Hong Kong’s own flower, the bauhinia (Bauhinia blakeana). Hong Kong’s beaches and coastal areas are also home to a wide variety of plant life, including creeping beach vitex (Vitex trifolia), rattlebox (Croatalaria retusa), beach naupaka (Scaevola sericea) and screw pine (Pandanus tectorius).
One of the largest natural habitats for wildlife in Hong Kong is the Mai Po Marsh ( Click here). There are also sanctuaries in the wetland areas of Tin Shui Wai (Hong Kong Wetland Park) and Kam Tin.
Wooded areas throughout the territory are habitats for warblers, flycatchers, robins, bulbuls and tits. Occasionally you’ll see sulphur-crested cockatoos, even on Hong Kong Island, and flocks of domestic budgerigars (parakeets) – domestic pets that have managed to fly the coop.
The areas around some of Hong Kong’s reservoirs shelter a large number of aggressive long-tailed macaques and rhesus monkeys, both of which are non-native species. Common smaller mammals include woodland and house shrews and bats. Occasionally spotted are leopard cats, Chinese porcupines, masked palm civets, ferret badgers, wild boar and barking deer. An interesting (but rare) creature is the Chinese pangolin, a scaly mammal resembling an armadillo that rolls itself up into an impenetrable ball when threatened.
Frogs, lizards and snakes – including the red-necked keelback, which has not one but two sets of fangs – can be seen in the New Territories and the Outlying Islands. Hong Kong is also home to an incredible variety of insects. There are some 240 species of butterflies and moths alone, including the giant silkworm moth with a wingspan of over 20cm.
Hong Kong waters are rich in sea life, including sharks (three-quarters of Hong Kong’s 40-odd gazetted beaches are equipped with shark nets) and dolphins, such as Chinese white dolphins (see the boxed text) and finless porpoises. Endangered green turtles call on Sham Wan beach on Lamma to lay eggs (see the boxed text), and there are some 90 species of stony coral. One of Hong Kong’s few remaining colonies of horseshoe crab lives in Tung Chung Bay, where the first part of the proposed cross-delta bridge ( Click here) will be built.
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POLLUTION
Given Hong Kong’s affluence, the city could be much cleaner if its government chose to deal with the issues. But bureaucratic inertia and commercial interests have undermined efforts to improve Hong Kong’s environment. Even a small measure such as taxing plastic bags entailed years of feasibility studies, consultation and policy debate, and it is yet to happen.
Plastic bags are only the tip of the iceberg in Hong Kong’s waste crisis. Three large landfills in the New Territories now absorb all of Hong Kong’s daily 16,500 tonnes of municipal waste (though they will soon be full). As space for building large landfills is limited, the government introduced waste reduction schemes in 1998, but progress has been slow. Only 40% of household waste is recycled.
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TRAVEL GREEN IN HONG KONG
If you have difficulty breathing on days when the official air pollution index is ‘low’, fear not. It’s not your lungs that are clouding your judgement; it’s the obsolete 20-year-old yardstick (www.epd-asg.gov.hk) used by the Hong Kong government to measure air pollution. For a clearer picture, you can consult Greenpeace’s Real Air Pollution Index (www.greenpeace.org/china/en/hk-airpollution-map),