vegetation at all unless it receives some partial protection from trees lower down. The area in question has been considerably improved but it will be a long time before these scars of war are healed.
Another interesting area is the catchment around the great Jubilee Reservoir at Shing Mun. Here a large part of the surrounding area consists of paddy fields which had to be vacated when the reservoir was built for fear of possible pollution of the water. Naturally, in an area of this kind the question of erosion and seepage is not so important as that of finding a productive use for the land on which Government has The Forestry unfortunately been obliged to prevent cultivation. Department has planted melaleuca here, a species which thrives under damp, water-logged conditions. Extensive planting has also been
carried out on the hillsides.
Restoration of a forest covering can only be achieved if the strictest possible protection is given to the vegetation both from woodcutters and from fire. Lack of protection can rapidly annihilate several years' intensive planting. Protection against woodcutters has always been a difficult problem in Hong Kong in view of the close proximity of such a large population to the forest areas and the high price firewood fetches. The Department organizes patrols of foresters who when they are on duty live in small groups, sometimes in isolated parts of the New Territories, and carry out extensive searches for woodcutters despoiling the hillsides.
This patrol work has had to be concentrated principally in the catchment areas of the reservoirs since to protect all the hillsides in the New Territories would be impossible without an uneconomical increase in the number of foresters employed. In the areas which the foresters do not patrol endeavours have been made by the department to persuade villagers to carry out their own protective work, and in the eastern part of the New Territories around Sai Kung this system has been most effective, the result being that the whole of the Sai Kung valley area will in time become one of the most productive forest areas as well as the most beautiful. The scheme works on an understanding between the Forestry Department, the district authorities and the various village communities concerned. If a village is interested, it is given the right to use its adjacent and frequently unproductive hillsides as forestry plantations, the Forestry Department provides seed and young trees and sometimes helps villagers with planting, and in return the villagers have to undertake to control cutting and carry out proper protective work in the new forests. One reason for its success in the Sai Kung area is undoubtedly that this part of the New Territories is off the main circular road and consequently a more settled district. Another area where similar schemes might be undertaken is Lantao Island, but the Forestry Department has not yet tackled this.
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