MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH
151
of 1926 at Taipo, when in a large matshed on the reclamation there the New Territory elders treated Sir C. Clementi and the leading members of the Service to a big banquet and speeches, the leading feature being that except for the sharks' fin soup all the food came from the New Territory and its waters. The points I remember best are: a bowl of air-bladders of Sargassum seaweed, which I found quite palatable; a game of chai mui in which the late A. E. Wood took part; the collapse under me of two bentwood chairs in succession, which helped to relieve the boredom of the European element and perhaps others.
During my periods in office I made an attempt to get the Chinese communities and villages owning forest lots to look after them and to plant trees. Free seed was distributed and planting instructions given, and a forest guard appointed to supervise and watch results. The difficulties of forest conservation in such scattered and isolated areas were certainly formidable: one was that the boat people could land almost anywhere and steal trees; another, that the grasscutters who annually collect fuel in autumn are quite likely to cut and take young seedlings: to say nothing of true disease and caterpillar infestation, often very serious. One bad case was at Tai O, where an entire hillside was laid bare at one swoop by its licensee instead of being cut in stages, and I told him to get it replanted. I don't remember the sequel, as I was transferred not long after. The denuded hillside faced west, and lay across the Po Chu Tam creek from Tai O market. Another great difficulty was to find forest guards who would do their job: a former A.D.O. North once minuted 'Where forest guards abound, there do abuses much more abound!'
The careful investigation of applications to use land was more than once impressed on me by experience. Desire to develop apparently unused land may mislead a D.O. into sanctioning the spoliation of an object of natural beauty, the monopolizing of an area in common use by a village community, or such damage to hill slopes as to cause villages or fields to be flooded with mud and soil wash, or the erection of a gimcrack structure of bad concrete instead of a brick or stone village house in harmony with its surroundings. Proposals for forest development may turn out to be schemes for evicting villagers from areas where they hold forest rights; though proper forest lot maps should make such schemes impossible. An instance of an application designed to monopolize an area already
MEMORIES OF THE DISTRICT OFFICE SOUTH
151
of 1926 at Taipo, when in a large matshed on the reclamation there the New Territory elders treated Sir C. Clementi and the leading members of the Service to a big banquet and speeches, the leading feature being that except for the sharks' fin soup all the food came from the New Territory and its waters. The points I remember best are: a bowl of air-bladders of Sargassum seaweed, which I found quite palatable; a game of chai mui in which the late A. E. Wood took part: the collapse under me of two bentwood chairs in succession, which helped to relieve the boredom of the European element and perhaps others.
During my periods in office I made an attempt to get the Chinese communities and villages owning forest lots to look after them and to plant trees, Free seed was distributed and planting instructions given, and a forest guard appointed to supervise and watch results. The difficulties of forest conservation in such scattered and isolated areas were certainly formidable: one was that the boat people could land almost anywhere and steal trees; another, that the grasscutters who annually collect fuel in autumn are quite likely to cut and take young seedlings: to say nothing of true disease and caterpillar in- festation, often very serious. One bad case was at Tai O, where an entire hillside was laid bare at one swoop by its licensee instead of being cut in stages, and I told him to get it replanted. I don't remember the sequel, as I was transferred not long after. The denuded hillside faced west, and lay across the Po Chu Tam creek from Tai O market. Another great difficulty was to find forest guards who would do their job: a former A.D.O. North once minuted 'Where forest guards abound, there do abuses much more abound!
The careful investigation of applications to use land was more than once impressed on me by experience. Desire to develop apparently unused land may mislead a D.O. into sanctioning the spoliation of an object of natural beauty, the monopolizing of an area in common use by a village community, or such damage to hill slopes as to cause villages or fields to be flooded with mud and soil wash, or the erection of a gimcrack structure of bad concrete instead of a brick or stone village house in harmony with its surroundings. Proposals for forest development may turn out to be schemes for evicting villagers from areas where they hold forest rights; though proper forest lot maps should make such schemes impossible. An instance of an application designed to monopolize an area already
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