Hong Kong Bird Watching Society’s comments for
2011-2012 Policy Address and 2012-2013 budget
The Hong Kong Bird Watching Society (HKBWS) urge for policies and actions to better protect our biodiversity and their habitats, in order to catch global standard of Biodiversity Conservation in Hong Kong:
1. Implementation of Convention on Biological Diversity and review of nature conservation policy
1.1. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has been formally extended to Hong Kong in May 2011 . HKBWS welcomes the extension but we urge for a formal publication and implementation of Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (BSAP) before May 2012, in order to meet the requirements of the CBD;
1.2. HKBWS urge for enhanced Public Involvement in plan-making either in the CBD implementation or other policies ;
1.3. HKBWS urge for publication of a list of locally endangered organisms and offer better protection to locally and globally threatened species;
2. Review of EIA system
2.1. HKBWS emphasize the need of introducing a formal and comprehensive Strategic Environmental Impact Assessment to higher policy-making processes.
2.2. HKBWS call on a reform on the current authority in Environmental Impact Assessment process to ensure professional scientific judgments and avoid conflict of interest .
2.3. The government should enhance public engagement by adopting new strategies, with regard to oversea experiences and other local examples (e.g. Town Planning processes);
2.4. Improvements should be made to the current Advisory Council on the Environment to widen the scope of expertise of members, as well as allowing public to present & raise issues, in order to make best use of both professional and public knowledge.
3. Enhanced Protection on countryside areas
3.1. HKBWS appreciates the introduction of planning control on country park enclaves. However, we urge for the extension of planning control on remaining Country Park enclaves as soon as possible . Planning control should also be applied to other ecologically sensitive areas not in the “Enclaves” list, e.g. Tung Chung River Valley and outlying islands.
3.2. The government should allocate more resources for enforcement actions by various departments including AFCD, EPD, PlanD and LandsD for more effective control on environmental destruction. A cross-departmental Task Force should be set up to co-ordinate these actions by the end of 2011.
3.3. The loopholes in legislation should be filled, in order to tackle activities such as fly-tipping and mass tree removal activities on private land.
3.4. Active Biodiversity Management should be introduced in country parks
4. Land Resources
4.1. The Government should identify and utilize areas such as old industrial areas, planned New Towns, before considering Country Parks. Developments around recognized sites of conservation interest should be avoided.
4.2. Future land use planning should be made with consideration of ecological linkage between areas of conservation interest, in order to fulfill the targets of the CBD .
4.3. The government should actively consider resumption of ecologically sensitive areas for nature conservation as a “public purpose”.
Welcome to HKBWS Forum 香港觀鳥會討論區 (http://hkbws.org.hk/BBS/)
