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Mr Patten said Hong Kong had already designated more than 40,000 hectares of land as country parks and special areas.

This was 40 per cent of the total land area and an exceptionally high proportion by international standards. The government planned to expand these areas and improve their management.

"The beauty of our country parks is in marked contrast to the squalor of over 700 hectares of environmental black spots in the New Territories," Mr Patten said.

A special Task Force had made a good start last year in tackling the most serious cases. Illegally occupied government land was being cleared and landscaped in Pat Heung and unauthorised developments were being prosecuted vigorously.

Maximum fines for offenders had been increased and more responsible attitudes towards land use encouraged.

A similar strategy would be applied to clean up a further 180 hectares of land in the Northeast New Territories in 1996.

"I should like to appeal to the towns and villages of the New Territories to support our efforts to end the black spots which blight so much of the landscape around them," said Mr Patten.

End/Wednesday, October 11, 1995

Users will pay to help unclog streets: Governor

Electronic road pricing and railway extensions were the Government's favoured solutions to streets increasingly clogged by traffic, the Governor, the Rt Hon Christopher Patten, told the Legislative Council today (Wednesday).

Mr Patten said electronic road pricing applied the "user-pays" principle to road traffic and allowed especially the private car driver to decide how much use to make of a vehicle.

The alternative was the risk of traffic gridlock and the sort of paralysis seen in other Asian cities at peak hour, he said.

The private car figures indicated where the problem lay and offered a blunt waming of worse to come, Mr Patten said.