2.
4.
ii)
We have gazetted the marshes as a restricted area on 6th June (i.e. entry without a permit is illegal) and have appointed game wardens. This should preserve the area from disturbance by casual visitors, and should reduce illegal netting of birds, though control will be far from complete.
iii) The whole area has been surveyed by
a qualified ornithologist, and we are considering proposals he has submitted to the Advisory Committee on
The
Recreational Development and Nature Conservation to make the area into a nature reserve, including a wild fowl park. The former would include measures to maintain the shrimp ponds in their present state. Like so many forms of inefficient agriculture they favour bird life, but the problem is how to make the owners see the merit of keeping them . in their present state without either
compensation or outright purchase. position is held for the time being because since 1972 the Crown Permits under which the kei wais are leased have required them to be maintained as kei wais, but sooner or later, as the permit-holders try to improve their yield, it will be necessary for the Government to intervene in one way or another. A wild fowl park would require the outright purchase of some kei wais, the construction of a lake, and presumably the construction of access for the public.
We are not acting on (iii) for the moment, firstly because we lack funds and secondly because we believe that the marshes will best be preserved for the time being by keeping them as inaccessible as possible. Nevertheless we will keep this attractive proposal under consideration, and if adequate funds were offered from private sources we would consider it again.
5.
While the foregoing programme is not unreasonable in the circumstances of Hong Kong, we do not want to be accountable to or subject to pressure from