These various actions have demonstrated the Hong Kong Government's desire to conserve Hong Kong's largest remaining wetland and its flora Inclusion of this site in the List would gain recognition for the site and the actions being taken to
and fauna.
international
protect it.
We propose that the present Mai Po, Tsim Bei Tsui and Inner Deep Bay SSSIS be combined for inclusion in the List (their separate listing is an artefact and has no biological sense), thus giving a total of about 2680 ha, as shown on the attached map.
Criteria for selecting sites for inclusion were most recently discussed at the First Conference of the Contracting Parties at Calgiari in 1980 (Atkinson-Willes et al. 1982), and are now again subject to revision
to revision and refinement in preparation for the Third Conference of the Contracting Parties to be held in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada 27 May to 5 June 1987. The establishment of criteria is contentious but discussions with staff of the International Waterfowl Research Bureau in March 1987 indicate that the Mai Po/Deep Bay area deserves inclusion. Facts which should be taken into consideration in support of this include:-
a)
Gull
The
Deep Bay holds the largest know population of Saunders' Larus saundersi in the world during the winter (50-60 birds). breeding grounds of this species are unknown and usually only a few individuals (up to about 6) have been recorded in recent years at other wintering sites in East China and Japan. In winter it is almost wholly restricted to estuaries a habitat under threat throughout the southern and eastern seaboards of China (Melville 1984a, 1984b).
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b) The number of wintering waterfowl has been increasing since counts were first conducted in 1979 (see attached figure) and now over 10,000 ducks are present in mid-winter.
c) Waders are most numerous during spring migration comprehensive counts are not available but it is estimated that in excess of 10,000 birds are present at peak times and many more than this use the site during the course of a migration season. Regular migrants include rare, vulnerable and endangered species such as Spotted Greenshank Tringa guttifer and Asiatic Dowitcher Limnodromus semipalmatus, both of which have world populations estimated at a few thousands only, and the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmaeus which is only a little more numerous globally. Information from marked birds has shown that the coast of southeast China (including Hong Kong) is a major landfall and 'refuelling' area for northward moving waders in spring (Melville 1981, Xu and Purchase 1983).
d) The wintering population of Dalmatian Pelicans Pelicanus crispus has been declining over the past 20 years, but in recent years about 30 birds have been present nearly one percent of the estimated world population (Crivelli and Schreiber 1984).
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