1. During the Press Conference, the Director of the EPD suddenly claimed that the government actually has sufficient, abundant, comprehensive, and continuous ecological and habitat research data in the San Tin area. However, the fact is that the EIA report did not provide a comprehensive analysis and assessment for the existing literature, indicating a lack of ecological baseline and understanding on the San Tin area.

2. The EPD still insists that reserving a 70-meter flight corridor for breeding egrets and herons can alleviate the impacts on the breeding colony in Mai Po Lung Village. They even mistakenly used the egrets and herons night roosting site in Tuen Mun Park as an analogy to claim the effectiveness of the 70m corridor, which is clearly inappropriate. In reality, due to the development in San Tin, breeding egrets and herons will lose a significant area of foraging grounds in San Tin fishpond and the egretry will also be surrounded by buildings with over 105 meters tall. We question whether such environment can meet the habitat requirements of breeding egrets and herons, which need to frequently enter and leave the egretry for feeding their chicks. It is unconfident that these egrets and herons could continue to breed in the face of such significant habitat changes. It is also unknown if the egretries still exist in the future.

3. Environmental groups have criticized the EIA for inappropriately calculating the "functional value" and compensation targets of affected fishponds based on only four bird species. The EPD claimed that, in response to feedback, they expanded the number of species from four to eight. However, important indicator species were still missing. They are the Eurasian otter, vulnerable Common Pochard, near-threatened Ferruginous Duck, Eastern Imperial Eagle, Eastern Marsh Harrier, Yellow-breasted Bunting, Temminck's Stint, breeding Little Grebe, dragonflies, amphibians, and reptiles.

4. The approval conditions issued by the EPD are just minor measures that could never be able to address the ecological destruction caused by large-scale wetland loss. Moreover, we also doubted that the conditions exist in name only. If the related compensatory measures eventually prove ineffective, the government will not need to stop the construction or reinstate the site. Even if the conditions are violated in the future, they will not be subject to statutory enforcement under the EIA ordinance.

Please stand firm with us for San Tin!