布政司署
香港下亞畢道
本署檔號 OUR Ref.:
* Your Ref.:
6
Dear Sirs,
*
RECEIV D
REG No.52)
Hi 1975
COLONIAL SECRETARIAT
LOWER ALBERT ROAD
HONG KONG
30th April 1975.
010
Ente 9
W
I am directed by His Excellency the Governor to refer
to your letters of 14th and 22nd April, 1975 and to inform you that the general points made in them have been noted.
火
The Tai Shang Wai Housing Scheme has already been approved, subject to final agreement being reached with the developers on the conditions on which the development may proceed. These will include requirements which are designed to protect the surrounding environment.
Of course the Government realises that this decision will be unpopular with those whose principal interest is to preserve their ability to watch wild life in the area. But this has to be seen in perspective. In the first place, the new estate adjoins the south-east tip of the marshes, whereas the area which is ornithologically most rewarding is in the north, and the effect of the estate on the use of the marshes by migrant birds is speculative and might well prove to be small. Secondly, the estate does not represent a threat to migrant species themselves, because the Mai Po Marshes are only a small part of the dwarf mangrove mud flats of the Pearl River estuary and adjacent areas.
At most what is at issue is the ability of people in Hong Kong to observe the species. At present this really means the members of the Birdwatching Society and a very few others, though this might change in the future. The Government is sympathetic to the Society's interest, but cannot ignore the fact that it is
a small minority group, and that it has no prescriptive rights over this area which is in private ownership.
The Government is aware of the unique ecological char- acteristics of the marshes in Hong Kong and has always accepted that the construction of this estate raises, in an urgent form, the question of what can reasonably be done to preserve a part or all of them as an area for field study. As you very well know this is being given urgent and expert consideration. But as you also well know there are many other forms of threat to the marshes as a habitat for wild life, and some would say greater than that by the housing estate. In particular the development of the kei wais as fish ponds, which is within the rights of their present owners, is an ever present and very real threat. There is therefore much more to the problem of preservation than control of the housing estate.
C.S. 41A