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additional 95 hectares and the final open space account for the Council shall be approximately 670 hectares by early next century. With these facts and figures, it is obvious some sort of long term Comprehensive Master Plan of landscaping and greening should be necessary, especially new challenges are being offered in virgin lands created by the above-mentioned Reclamation Programme and the Metro Plan. How to landscape and green the new urban areas, especially those valuable coastal promenade locations, should be as important as those for greening the existing old urban areas. Piece-meal and passive actions without fore-sight could be proved costly and environmentally disastrous.
I am glad to report that we have learnt much from the policy and operational experience from Singapore during our last study trip, as far as 'Greening the City' or in their term, 'Greening the State' is concerned. If the Council passes to-day's motion and to implement our greening policy, I would not hesitate to recommend to our colleagues to re-visit Singapore again.
Sir, with the above words, I second the motion.
DR. THE HON. ELSIE TU (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I should like to thank Mr. MAN Sai-Cheong for proposing this motion so soon after my question in this Council concerning new initiatives besides our 'Keep Hong Kong Clean Campaign'. I believe that a Greening Hong Kong Movement as proposed will spur on our citizens to consider not only how to keep the city clean, but also how to make it beautiful. Having visited Singapore recently, I feel I should like to see our Hong Kong citizens taking the same pride in our city as the Singaporeans do in theirs. Their efforts have made Singapore so green that it became necessary to introduce exotic flowers to offset the greenness. The result is a beautiful as well as a clean and green Singapore. I hope we can follow their example. Any architect who plans a building in Singapore is required to make provision for greenery. The result can be seen everywhere from the moment when one arrives in the airport. We in Hong Kong must raise our objectives beyond the Lap Sap Chung and DOC images which have kept us rubbish-conscious. We should now aim to make Hong Kong beautiful, because a city of natural beauty is a city of natural physical and mental health for its people. I trust we can now educate our young people right from kindergarten to love clean, green and beautiful so that they will grow up with a natural desire for a beautiful environment. Mr. Chairman, I support the proposal in this motion.
MR. RONNIE WONG MAN-CHIU (in Cantonese):—Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although today not all members would be speaking on this motion, but from what they wear I can see that they have already given their support to Mr. MAN while many female colleagues are wearing green colour and Mr. PAO has worn a green tie. The University of Hong Kong has conducted a survey indicated in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island and in Kwai Tsing District in N.T. The air pollution level is very serious. In these two districts, they have interviewed 4000 children within age group of 8-11 and around 7.6% suffered from asthma. This is a higher figure than the percentage recorded several years ago.
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57
Asthma is caused by both hereditary and environmental causes. In fact it is a sensitive throat and when some were suffering from asthma is living in a very dirty environment, the disease will be aggravated and they will suffer from frequent coughs. So in very densely populated area in highly polluted areas, we must plant more trees. On one hand it can beautify the area, on the second, it will also improve the air quality and during the summer time, it will have the effects of decreasing the temperature. I support the idea that we must have a greening the city policy and we must have a working group monitoring the progress of such a campaign. And the working group must include the concerned government departments, for example, representatives from the Planning Department, the Highways Department, the Housing Department, the Environmental Protection Department etc. so that the working group will be able to integrate in the best fashion and to use their resources in the most efficient manner so that the concrete jungle will be turned into a beautiful Eden. With these remarks, I support Mr. MAN's motion.
MR. MA LEE-WO (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I think the motion proposed by Mr. MAN actually echoes the slogan of the Urban Council for the past year, i.e. Enriching City Life. Because we can see actually for an ideal city it includes two elements. Firstly, urban facilities, I believe as a result of the hard work of the Council for the past years it has been able to achieve a lot, for example, sitting out areas, Cultural Centre, Space Museum, Science Museum, so basically we have already got adequate urban facilities and very modern facilities for the enjoyment of members of the public. However, apart from these facilities, we also need to improve the environment of the city. And we talk about city environment we must consider amenities and this also includes two aspects. Firstly, cleanliness of the streets, and in the past Urban Council, this is major work for the past century or so. So it is responsible for keeping the streets and roads clean and also keeping the order of streets. This also involves keeping the hawking activities in order. However, if we only talk about street order or street cleanliness, this is already backward or conservative, because we are still remaining at the stage of keeping the streets clean or keeping the streets in order. I think we must take a more proactive approach on how we could further improve the environment as Mr. MAN mentioned earlier. We must have a comprehensive greening programme. So apart from cleaning the city, we must green the city as well. This is a very important concept and this is a concept brought out by this motion debate which should be spread to the whole of the city. Actually greening the city can be best done in the urban area by growing more trees. I believe members know the impact of more trees in the urban area. A number of my colleagues have elaborated on this already and I will not repeat what they have already said. Trees pay a very important function but we must not plant trees blindly. Because in many urban areas we can see, trees are planted in undesirable areas, for example, in very busy streets or in busy carriage ways or where it is very difficult to irrigate the trees, then the trees will not be able to grow well. Actually when we grow trees we must consider appropriate areas. What I mean by suitable areas are areas which are accessible
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additional 95 hectares and the final open space account for the Council shall be approximately 670 hectares by early next century. With these facts and figures, it is obvious some sort of long term Comprehensive Master Plan of landscaping and greening should be necessary, especially new challenges are being offered in virgin lands created by the above-mentioned Reclamation Programme and the Metro Plan. How to landscape and green the new urban areas, especially those valuable coastal promenade locations, should be as important as those for greening the existing old urban areas. Piece-meal and passive actions without fore-sight could be proved costly and environmentally disastrous.
I am glad to report that we have learnt much from the policy and operational experience from Singapore during our last study trip, as far as 'Greening the City' or in their term, 'Greening the State' is concerned. If the Council passes to-day's motion and to implement our greening policy, I would not hesitate to recommend to our colleagues to re-visit Singapore again.
Sir, with the above words, I second the motion.
DR. THE HON. ELSIE TU (in English):—Mr. Chairman, I should like to thank Mr. MAN Sai-Cheong for proposing this motion so soon after my question in this Council concerning new initiatives besides our 'Keep Hong Kong Clean Campaign'. I believe that a Greening Hong Kong Movement as proposed will spur on our citizens to consider not only how to keep the city clean, but also how to make it beautiful. Having visited Singapore recently, I feel I should like to see our Hong Kong citizens taking the same pride in our city as the Singaporeans do in theirs. Their efforts have made Singapore so green that it became necessary to introduce exotic flowers to offset the greenness. The result is a beautiful as well as a clean and green Singapore. I hope we can follow their example. Any architect who plans a building in Singapore is required to make provision for greenery. The result can be seen everywhere from the moment when one arrives in the airport. We in Hong Kong must raise our objectives beyond the Lap Sap Chung and DOC images which have kept us rubbish- conscious. We should now aim to make Hong Kong beautiful, because a city of natural beauty is a city of natural physical and mental health for its people. I trust we can now educate our young people right from kindergarten to love clean, green and beautiful so that they will grow up with a natural desire for a beautiful environment. Mr. Chairman, I support the proposal in this motion.
MR. RONNIE WONG MAN-CHIU (in Cantonese):-Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although today not all members would be speaking on this motion, but from what they wear I can see that they have already given their support to Mr. MAN while many female colleagues are wearing green colour and Mr. PAO has worn a green tie. The University of Hong Kong has conducted a survey indicated in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island and in Kwai Tsing District in N.T. The air pollution level is very serious. In these two districts, they have interviewed 4000 children within age group of 8-11 and around 7.6% suffered from asthma. This is a higher figure than the percentage recorded several years ago.
Page 34 of 126
HONG KONG URBAN COUNCIL
Page 34 of 126
57
Asthma is caused by both hereditary and environmental causes. In fact it is a sensitive throat and when some were suffering from asthma is living in a very dirty environment, the disease will be aggravated and they will suffer from frequent coughs. So in very densely populated area in highly polluted areas, we must plant more trees. On one hand it can beautify the area, on the second, it will also improve the air quality and during the summer time, it will have the effects of decreasing the temperature. I support the idea that we must have a greening the city policy and we must have a working group monitoring the progress of such a campaign. And the working group must include the concerned government departments, for example, representatives from the Planning Department, the Highways Department, the Housing Department, the Environmental Protection Department etc. so that the working group will be able to integrate in the best fashion and to use their resources in the most efficient manner so that the concrete jungle will be turned into a beautiful Eden. With these remarks, I support Mr. MAN's motion.
MR. MA LEE-Wo (in Cantonese):—Mr. Chairman, I think the motion proposed by Mr. MAN actually echoes the slogan of the Urban Council for the past year, i.e. Enriching City Life. Because we can see actually for an ideal city it includes two elements. Firstly, urban facilities, I believe as a result of the hard work of the Council for the past years it has been able to achieve a lot, for example, sitting out areas, Cultural Centre, Space Museum, Science Museum, so basically we have already got adequate urban facilities and very modern facilities for the enjoyment of members of the public. However, apart from these facilities, we also need to improve the environment of the city. And we talk about city environment we must consider amenities and this also includes two aspects. Firstly, cleanliness of the streets, and in the past Urban Council, this is major work for the past century or so. So it is responsible for keeping the streets and roads clean and also keeping the order of streets. This also involves keeping the hawking activities in order. However, if we only talk about street order or street cleanliness, this is already backward or conservative, because we are still remaining at the stage of keeping the streets clean or keeping the streets in order. I think we must take a more proactive approach on how we could further improve the environment as Mr. MAN mentioned earlier. We must have a comprehensive greening programme. So apart from cleaning the city, we must green the city as well. This is a very important concept and this is a concept brought out by this motion debate which should be spread to the whole of the city. Actually greening the city can be best done in the urban area by growing more trees. I believe members know the impact of more trees in the urban area. A number of my colleagues have elaborated on this already and I will not repeat what they have already said. Trees pay a very important function but we must not plant trees blindly. Because in many urban areas we can see, trees are planted in undesirable areas, for example, in very busy streets or in busy carriage ways or where it is very difficult to irrigate the trees, then the trees will not be able to grow well. Actually when we grow trees we must consider appropriate areas. What I mean by suitable areas are areas which are accessible
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