The Convention on Biological Diversity is the direction that will guide Hong Kong's future development

On October 11, 2021, the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity will be held in Kunming, China. The conference will formulate the “Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework” and release the global biodiversity conservation action plan for the next 10 years. The theme is: “Ecological Civilization, Building a Community of Life on Earth.” Extracted from the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government “Northern Metropolis Report” On page 17, the country’s development goals of “building an ecological civilization” and “building a beautiful countryside” seem to coincide. Recalling the performance of the Hong Kong government in fulfilling the “Convention”, according to the latest release of Hong Kong Bird Watching Society “A 10-Year Review of Hong Kong’s Biodiversity and Conservation under the Convention on Biological Diversity” is shown in 20 Among them, more than half of the “sexual goals” failed to meet the standards. The Hong Kong The annual policy address does not mention a word about how to implement the “Aichi Biodiversity Target”, which proves The government’s attitude is still based on economic development and infrastructure construction, and only compensates when the ecological environment is damaged and affected during development.

This model was used in the development of the new town of Tin Shui Wai. At that time, the ecological value of fish ponds was not recognized and valued. The government took the lead in filling large areas of fish ponds for housing construction. It was only later that the disappearance of fish ponds had a certain impact on the important international wetland in Deep Bay Ramsar. , Use Hong Kong Wetland Park as part of wetland compensation. This first development and then conservation model is absolutely incompatible with the principles of the Convention on Biological Diversity. It is hard to imagine that after the construction of the New Territories North New Town, the Kutong North New Development Area and the Xintian Development Hub, there will be more than one million people adjacent to the wetland, human interference, noise pollution and other problems, and there will still be many migratory birds or wetland animals living in Are there such things as the Sanbaoshu Wetland Conservation Park and the Hokwai Wetland Conservation Park built for them? Some friends are optimistic about the government taking the lead in the conservation of wetlands, because this is the wetland conservation park that has been planned the most at one time in history, and the area is also the largest in history. It is a long-term solution to the long-term desolation of Hong Kong’s fish pond wetlands and the gradual loss of ecological functions. For example, in the past, some real estate developers wanted to build a private residential project in Fenglewei, and cooperated with the ring group to carry out the PPP (public-private partnership) under the new nature conservation policy. I have a wait-and-see attitude on how the government can solve the problems of private ownership and nature conservation. The only thing that can convince me is that the government uses practical actions to first conserve abandoned fish ponds and increase the ecological functions of wetlands so that the wetland ecology can continue to survive.

In fact, Hong Kong itself has a very special example of private development The merchants should do a good job in wetland restoration and conservation. It took ten years to observe and record the wetland ecology before preparing to start residential projects. Although the wetland is not as large as mentioned above, it is believed to be an example worthy of the government’s reference. The wetland is called and Shengwei . Private developers can achieve “preservation first, then development”. It’s impossible for our government to do it!