By Matthew Walsh

A huge suspected gas explosion at a restaurant in northern China killed two people and injured 26 more on Wednesday, state media reported, causing severe damage to buildings.

The blast occurred just before 8:00 am (0000 GMT), state broadcaster CCTV said, in a residential area in the city of Sanhe, Hebei province, less than 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of the centre of Beijing.

Footage online circulated by state media showed a huge explosion that sent plumes of smoke and fire across a busy road.

CCTV reported Wednesday afternoon that two people had since died, 26 were injured and the fire had been extinguished.

The explosion was suspected to have been caused by a gas leak at a fried chicken shop, state media reported.

Two large buildings were completely destroyed in the blast, footage shared by the broadcaster showed, with rescue teams seen hauling away a car hit by the explosion.

Rescue workers can also be seen carrying away a large gas canister.

Residents told AFP journalists they had heard a loud explosion before rushing outside to see a plume of smoke rising into the morning air.

“I heard a great big bang… which scared me stiff,” a seller at a local market told AFP.

“Outside, I saw clouds of black smoke,” they added.

Another seller said they also heard a “huge bang” from the blast site, in a bustling area of squat apartment blocks about six or seven floors high.

“The noise was too loud,” a vendor surnamed Wang told AFP, adding she had heard a “second explosion”.

A local man said he did not see the explosion, but when he reached the scene, there was still thick smoke.

Near the scene of the blast, an AFP team observed police waving oncoming traffic away from an entrance to the neighbourhood where the explosion occurred.

From a police cordon of the blast zone, journalists could see a tower of grey smoke a few hundred metres (yards) away.

‘Destroyed’

The blast blew out shop facades, footage shared on video-sharing site Douyin showed. The uploader told AFP the explosion took place 200 metres from her home.

Another social media video verified by AFP showed what appeared to be a building that had completely collapsed as well as several destroyed cars and debris strewn across the street.

The local Langfang fire department said 36 emergency vehicles and 154 personnel were dispatched to the scene.

A merchant working at a nearby store told state-run Jimu News she had been in her shop when she heard a bang.

She ran out of her store and saw a fire, she said, adding that the whole building had been “virtually destroyed”.

In a bid to prevent further accidents, a local company temporarily halted the provision of gas to 50 residential compounds and businesses in the area, state-run news outlet China National Radio said.

Explosions and other deadly accidents are common in China due to lax safety standards and poor enforcement.

A recent spate of such accidents has prompted calls from President Xi Jinping for “deep reflection” and greater efforts to stop them.

Last month, at least 15 people were killed and 44 injured in a fire at a residential building in the eastern city of Nanjing.

In January, dozens died after a fire broke out at a store in the central city of Xinyu, with state news agency Xinhua reporting the blaze had been caused by the “illegal” use of fire by workers in the store’s basement.

That fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central Henan province killed 13 schoolchildren as they slept in a dormitory.

Domestic media reports suggested the fire was caused by an electric heating device.

Last June, an explosion at a barbecue restaurant in the northwest of the country left 31 dead and prompted official pledges of a nationwide campaign to promote workplace safety.

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A total of 916 boars were ” humanely dispatched” in Hong Kong over the past two years, with the government citing the need to reduce “nuisance” caused by the wild animals.

Responding to a lawmaker’s questions in the Legislative Council on Wednesday, Secretary for Environment  and Ecology Tse Chin-wan said that the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) had deployed more CCTV cameras and installed new trapping devices in 2023 to more efficiently capture the wild boars.

The number of boars killed rose last year, with 41 wild pigs “humanely dispatched” on average per month, a 70 per cent increase from the monthly average of 24 in 2022.

Hong Kong’s population of wild boars was around 1,360 last year, a decline of 26 per cent from 2022, when there were 1,830.

Tse said in LegCo that authorities had installed 100 infrared cameras across the city to document the animals’ numbers and patterns of occurrence.

Since November 2021, the government has dropped its long-standing trap, neuter, return (TNR) policy, which stipulated that wild pigs in urban areas were captured and returned to the wild.

The policy change came after a police officer was bitten by a wild boar in Tin Hau. In 2021, authorities received 20 reports of people being injured by boars, a sharp increase from the number in 2020, when just three were injured.

Local media outlet reported in November 2021 that AFCD officers had used bait to lure boars to be killed, triggering criticism from the public and animal rights groups, who called it an “abhorrent” move.

Tse said, since the policy change, AFCD had regularly conducted operations to capture and “humanely dispatch” wild pigs in urban and rural areas where the animals have been sighted, human injuries have occurred, or the boars’ presence may pose potential risks to the public.

In 2013, former chief of food and health Ko Wing-man said in response to pro-democracy lawmaker Claudia Mo’s question that AFCD injected general anaesthetics to euthanise the animals. The injection was normally performed first in the thigh or buttock muscle and then in the heart, in the presence of at least one field officer and one veterinary officer.

Human feeding

According to the government, “human feeding activities are one of the root causes of wild pig nuisance.”

Earlier this year, authorities sought to change the city’s wild animal protection laws to raise the maximum penalty for illegally feeding wild animals to HK$100,000 and imprisonment for one year. The amendment will come into effect in August if it passes the opposition-free legislature.

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Two recently published books shed light on the relations between central and local authorities in mainland China, and provide valuable lessons for Hong Kong.

In one, we see that local politicians in Wuhan failed to learn the lessons of SARS, repeating mistakes during the outbreak of Covid-19 that had disastrous consequences for the country and the world. They operated in a system designed centrally that prioritised politics and stability above all else.

In the other, we see that local politicians not only accepted instructions and advice from central authorities, but also actively, persistently, and effectively represented local interests to central authorities. Both cases, one negative and the other positive, offer something for us to learn from.

Yang Dali’s new book, Wuhan: How the Covid-19 Outbreak Spiraled Out of Control, published by Oxford University Press, shows the shocking consequences of prioritising politics and stability over science when Covid-19 emerged in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, with a population of 11 million.

Yang’s day-by-day account covering the period from December 8, 2019 to the end of the Wuhan lockdown on April 8, 2020, shows how the Chinese Communist Party’s culture of “telling good stories” smothered attempts by clinicians in hospitals and labs to report the dire situation on the ground. As a result, city and provincial leaders, wrapped in a political cocoon, repeatedly lied to central authorities and the public.

According to Yang, local authorities designed elaborate strategies to suppress information about the infectiousness of the disease and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission, allowing the virus to spread throughout the community and beyond. The police, a key part of the stability-maintaining apparatus, vigorously suppressed the many whistleblowers in Wuhan who tried to break through the local party’s wall of silence, Li Wenliang among them.

Local officials, ever vigilant, aggressively censored the national online disease reporting system that would have alerted officials outside of Wuhan and Hubei province, and in Beijing. Local authorities repeatedly concealed from visiting investigation teams the fact that scores of medical personnel in Wuhan hospitals were sick with what came to be called Covid-19.

As Yang points out, central authorities admonished the visiting investigation teams to defer to local authorities “under the[centrally-designed] principal of territorial management, the locals are in charge, and you experts are there to provide assistance.”

As we know, the wall of silence eventually crumbled. The World Health Organization (WHO) first found out about a possible outbreak of a “viral pneumonia of uncertain etiology” from social media. In other words, similar to the SARS outbreak in 2003, China did not initiate reporting to the WHO in accordance with the International Health Regulations.

From Ma Xiao’s book, Localized Bargaining: The Political Economy of China’s High-Speed Railway Program, published by the Oxford University Press in 2022, we see central-local relations in an entirely different light.

Ma traces in great detail how local officials in Jiangsu’s Yancheng city, population 8 million, lobbied and won the extension of high-speed rail to their city, “tirelessly travelling to relevant departments in Beijing and the provincial capital to make the case for the city.”

These efforts involved both the mayor and the party secretary who mobilised the community. They visited the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Railways/China Railway Corporation “numerous times.” The lobbying spanned over a decade.

Local officials leveraged their positions in the party and state hierarchies. They used local social elites to mobilise “spontaneous expressions of demand for policy benefits by grassroots constituents (e.g., protests) to put pressure on their superiors and extract policy concessions.”

After doubts, delays, and false starts, they succeeded. Yancheng Station opened on December 16, 2019.

Ma shows us what is expected of local officials in mainland China. Hong Kong, by contrast, apparently resisted a high-speed railway station, and only after much discussion, protests, and court cases was a deal finally done.

My point is not about high-speed rail, but about the representation of Hong Kong in the places that matter. Most crucially, these include party committees such as the Central Hong Kong and Macau Work Leading Small Group and Central Committee. The Hong Kong government has no representation on either of these central bodies and yet they make policy on and for Hong Kong.

In the high-speed rail case, local officials lobbied provincial party and government agencies and State Council offices and a ministry turned state-owned enterprise.

The two books taken together reveal much about central-local relations in which Hong Kong is embedded. In both cases a common incentive system for local officials is at play. The system rewards local leaders with promotion for performance. How to define performance depends on the context.

In the Wuhan case, the centrally imposed incentive system led authorities to value politics and stability over science. Local officials suppressed, concealed, and lied to central authorities and the public, with disastrous consequences. Yang labels their behaviour a kind of bureaucratic pathology. We all paid for this. True, central authorities held local Hubei and Wuhan leaders to account, and heads rolled.

The same incentive system, this time prioritising economic development, motivated local officials in Yancheng to press central authorities for benefits and they were brilliantly successful.

What can we in Hong Kong learn from these cases? First, unlike authorities in Wuhan, in the past we have valued learning from previous experience. Yang’s account indirectly highlights the autonomy of Hong Kong, under One Country, Two Systems. Our scientific community had the autonomy to investigate and report publicly its findings on sensitive issues such as novel infectious diseases. Our system also has highly valued transparency and sharing information.

Our system, at least previously, was focused on learning lessons from past mistakes. Thus, after SARS, authorities in the government and the Legislative Council convened panels to investigate what went wrong and how to improve our system of infectious disease management and control. We learned a lot from this and it made us better prepared as a community for the outbreak of Covid-19.

But throughout the Covid-19 pandemic we also made obvious – and perhaps not so obvious – mistakes that must be investigated formally and publicly. The lack of coordination between government departments, the Hospital Authority and the medical profession left our elderly mostly unvaccinated and resulted in the highest death rate in the world from Covid-19.

Conflicting messaging confused many about the benefits and risks of vaccination. How could isolation and quarantine have been better managed? Did we need to close the borders for so long?

Experts would undoubtedly see more, and their investigations could help us better prepare for the next pandemic. These were emergency management decisions, made under pressure. The government now claims to be interested in emergency management. I urge the authorities to reconsider their decision not to investigate how they managed Covid-19. This assumes that Hong Kong has the autonomy to conduct such an investigation. Do we?

Second, we should leverage Hong Kong’s autonomy to lobby Beijing for benefits, Yancheng-style. Our relative autonomy permits us to have a relatively independent legal and judicial system, well-developed financial services, connectivity to the rest of the world, and so forth.

Representation of Hong Kong requires persistent and targeted lobbying to be effective. Such lobbying could win Hong Kong a more central role in the Greater Bay Area, improved logistics and regional airport arrangements, and an enhanced role in the provision of financial services. Ma’s case study also shows the importance of mobilising the community even to protest, something that our leaders today are perhaps loath even to contemplate. This is the hardscrabble reality of politics in China that we need to learn. 

Finally, we need to understand that, from the perspective of the central authorities, prioritising politics and stability is not wrong. This is reflected in the fact that officials have quietly re-employed the party secretaries of Hubei and Wuhan, who were dismissed in February 2020. Priorities often conflict. Which to pursue is a matter of judgement.

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Almost 57 per cent of people living in subdivided flats have said they were “uncertain” about the details of a new pay-as-you-throw waste tax, a survey conducted by a Hong Kong NGO has found as it urged authorities to further postpone the citywide roll-out of the rubbish levy.

Originally slated for implementation on April 1, the municipal solid waste charging scheme will come into effect in August. Hong Kong’s environment minister announced in January that it would be pushed back, citing public concerns and a lack of understanding over how the scheme would be enforced.

See also: Hong Kong waste tax postponed until August, environment secretary Tse Chin-wan says

It marked the second time the scheme had been delayed since it was approved by the legislature in 2021. Under the scheme, Hongkongers will have to dispose of household waste using government-authorised bags or risk a HK$1,500 fine.

Anti-poverty NGO the Society for Community Organization (SoCO) on Sunday urged the government to further postpone the full enforcement of the waste tax until next April, citing a recent survey it had conducted in which underprivileged residents raised concerns about the affordability of the levy.

SoCO interviewed 306 people living in subdivided flats last month, more than 60 per cent of whom lived in Sham Shui Po, the city’s second-poorest district, according to government figures. The median age of respondents was 47-years-old, while their median household income stood at HK$11,000.

The NGO estimated that there were about 220,000 low-income renters residing in subdivided flats in Hong Kong, a statement added.

According to the survey, 76.8 per cent of the respondents agreed that the government should roll out environmentally-friendly policies that promote waste reduction. More than 90 per cent said they supported recycling measures, while 97.1 per cent said they had eco-friendly habits, such as carrying their own shopping bags and reducing their electricity and water consumption.

But 76.5 per cent said they were concerned about the extra financial costs involved in purchasing the designated bags and tags under the government’s new scheme. From August, a household that disposed of one 10 or 15 litre bag per day would pay about HK$33 to HK$51 a month in garbage tax.

While about 70 per cent of the respondents indicated that they would reduce the amount of domestic waste in light of the scheme, more than half said they would throw rubbish out less frequently, while 25 per cent said they may dump kitchen waste into the toilet.

“By reducing the use of garbage bags and the frequency of waste disposal, it could instead create household hygiene problems or cause blocked drains in the buildings, increasing repair costs,” SoCO said in its Chinese statement.

A total of 56.9 per cent of respondents said they were “uncertain” about the details of the waste tax, including how to purchase the designated bags and where to dispose waste. Over 43 per cent also said they were worried about unintentionally breaching the law once the waste tax became effective.

“Underprivileged residents may be lacking information; they are particularly dependent on the government for prompt and sustained [policy] education,” the NGO said.

SoCO proposed a “four-phase” plan for the new waste charge. For the first phase, the NGO suggested testing the waste tax on government departments and buildings. In the second and third phases, the government could further levy the tax on major residential estates in August, then on single block residential buildings in December.

The government should only introduce the new tax in low-income districts after the first three stages, and citywide law enforcement actions should not be conducted earlier than next April, the NGO added.

The government had already decided to test the new waste tax at governmental buildings from April, with environment chief Tse Chin-wan saying that such “on-site demonstrations” would help illustrate the working of the scheme to the general public.

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In the studio of Hong Kong art therapist Gigi Leung, recent visitors were met with an arresting spectacle — a wall full of well over 100 handwritten cards. These cards contained anonymous answers which earlier visitors had given to two questions:

“What troubled you when you were growing up?” and, “What did you do at the time to make the trouble go away?”

A 36-year-old wrote that they had suffered from severe headaches and bouts of vomiting because of immense academic pressure. A 26-year-old said their classmate had thrown bubble gum at them and shoved rubbish into their drawer. They tearfully begged their parents to put them in a different school, the card read, but the response they received was: “Just ignore [the bullies]!” 

Similar cards were displayed on an adjacent wall, but each of these was placed inside an envelope, showing only the respondent’s age on the edge of the paper. The cards – filled out by students – also posed two questions: 

“What troubles you and makes you unhappy?”

“What do you want the people around you to do for you?”

An 18-year-old said they felt distant from their family and were only able to find companionship from their stuffed toys. A seven-year-old said a classmate had said “bad things” about them, leaving them feeling very “upsad.” 

Rising youth suicides

These personal responses were part of a small exhibition which Leung curated last month called “I want to tell you, actually I am not happy.” The project, which lasted one and a half months, came at a time of growing alarm over rising youth suicides since the academic year began last September.

“The main theme of our exhibition was to provide emotional support for students. As an adult, if we want to learn more about students’ emotions, we have to take more initiative and take an extra step,” the 35-year-old therapist told HKFP in Cantonese last month. 

Hong Kong last year saw a decade-high number of suspected student suicides, with the Education Bureau receiving 31 reports in the first 11 months of 2023. Local health authorities revealed that more than 1,800 Hongkongers under the age of 18 had been diagnosed with depression at public healthcare facilities in 2022-23.

The government cited “greater challenges” faced by students after the full resumption of classes following the Covid-19 pandemic as one of the factors contributing to the trend.

Academic pressure

Clarence Tsang, executive director of the Samaritan Befrienders Hong Kong, told HKFP that intermittent class suspensions had slowed students’ progress, and many schools were eager to catch up on the syllabus. 

Pressure also comes from the top of the education system, with school principals and decision makers under pressure to keep schools afloat amid a shrinking student population due to a low birth rate and an emigration wave, Tsang said. 

According to government figures, Hong Kong recorded 333,551 primary school students in 2022, the lowest since 2015. The decline in the number of secondary school students was sharper still, with the 2022 figure of 321,162 a 10-year low. 

More than 70 primary schools in Hong Kong had to cut primary one classes in the 2023-24 academic year, local media reported last September. Schools unable to meet student enrolment targets ultimately face closure.

“The survival of each school is dependent on the number of students they have. How does a school get more students? They usually try to boost academic performance to make parents want to place their children there,” Tsang said in Cantonese. 

Emily, a social worker based in a primary school, echoed Tsang’s remarks, telling HKFP in Cantonese that both teachers and students were under tremendous pressure as schools sought to improve their rankings. 

“The principal has made it very clear: there’s no student who can’t be taught well. In other words, the principal thinks it’s because the teachers didn’t do enough,” she said, requesting to be identified only by her first name for fear of retribution.

Bullying

Tsang said the pandemic meant children had limited interaction with their schoolmates over the past few years. Some struggled to fit in on their return to school, causing them to wonder why they were not accepted by their peers.

“Adults may think that psychological bullying is not a big deal. To students, however, not being accepted creates a lot of stress,” he said. 

Several students identified as high suicide risks have been referred to Emily since the beginning of this school year. Some had engaged in self-harm, while others had expressed thoughts of ending their lives to parents, teachers and social workers, she said. 

3-tier response system

In response to the upward trend in student suicides, the government rolled out a cross-departmental effort in December to help schools identify students at higher risk of suicide and provide early support. 

According to the first layer of a three-tier response mechanism, schools should review the mental health needs of students and give priority to caring for and counselling students with a high risk of suicide. Schools should provide timely assistance and help students in need find professional counselling or treatment, the authorities said. 

The reliance on schools to spot students with emotional distress may be “unfair” to teaching staff who already have an intense workload, said Tsang of the suicide prevention group. He questioned whether the mechanism was suggesting that teachers were to blame if they could not identify students with emotional issues. 

“Schools put a lot of pressure on teachers to handle academic matters, they don’t have much energy and time to take care of the emotional needs of students. It’s not that they don’t want to, it is whether they have the time to do so,” he said.

See also: Hong Kong parents and schoolchildren learn a harsh lesson from Covid closures

Some schools also saw a frequent change in teachers, which made it difficult for students to build trust and share their worries with educators. 

The wastage rate of primary school teachers in Hong Kong stood at 8.9 per cent in the academic year of 2022-23, more than double the four per cent in 2017-18, data from the Education Bureau showed. 

Secondary schools saw a teacher wastage rate of 9.9 per cent in the last academic year, a major increase from 4.9 per cent in 2017-18. 

Tsang also cast doubt on the training teachers received for handling students with mental health needs. On top of theoretical training, guidance and regular consultation with organisations that have frontline experience dealing with youth suicides is crucial, he said. 

More social workers at school

In 2019, Hong Kong vowed to earmark HK$130 million to hire an additional 370 school-based counsellors. The aim was to increase the number of social workers stationed at each government-funded secondary school from one to two. 

Still, Tsang said more school-based social workers were needed, as the process of helping students experiencing suicidal ideation was time-consuming. Students also preferred speaking to personnel they saw frequently on campus, as opposed to off-campus professionals – whom the government sought to engage in the second layer of its response system if schools did not have enough manpower to tend to the needs of students.  

“The most ideal ratio is one social worker to 100 students,” Tsang said. 

Under the third tier of the response system, students with severe mental health needs may be referred to specialist services at the Hospital Authority (HA). Their cases would be given priority, the government pledged, while a consultation hotline was set up for principals to seek professional advice. 

As of mid-January, the HA’s psychiatric department had received a total of 50 referrals from school principals, local media reported last month. 

Gov’t subsidy

Tsang urged the government to consider subsidising schools and students to seek professional help at private healthcare centres, as there was already overwhelming demand for public psychiatry services. 

Eric Chen, chair professor of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Hong Kong, told Ming Pao last June that most follow-up consultations at the HA would last just five or six minutes. Patients also saw a frequent change in doctors, as the HA’s psychiatry department struggled with a manpower shortage. 

In a bid to widen students’ access to professional help, art therapist Leung offered services at a “pay as you can” rate to more than 30 students, most of them at university. They paid around HK$100 for each session, she said. 

Many of her clients reached her through social media instead of being referred by schools or their parents. The therapist said money was the last thing students should worry about. 

“Perhaps my therapy doesn’t suit them, or they want to seek other services eventually and that’s okay. I just want them to remember their intention of wanting to seek help,” she said. 

The idea of collecting people’s childhood traumas and how they overcame them stemmed from a workshop Leung held with the director and an actor of Hong Kong film Time Still Turns the Pages. 

Directed by Nick Cheuk, the film revolves around a Hong Kong secondary school teacher trying to identify the student who penned an anonymous letter conveying suicidal thoughts. In the process the teacher, played by Lo Chun-yip, relives his own painful childhood memories that left him traumatised for years. 

The film has made a splash in the city since its public release in mid-November last year and fuelled debate about the rising youth suicide rate. Leung’s separate workshop for adults, which discussed childhood trauma with around 30 participants, made her wonder if an early intervention would have helped them better handle their pain.

Next exhibition

The therapist and her team are preparing for a second phase of the exhibition, which will ask participants to respond to the emotional distress expressed by others. The exhibition entitled “I know you are unhappy, but I want to tell you…” is set to be held in May or July, around the school examination period. 

Asked whether she would be open to bringing her therapy to school campuses, Leung said it would depend on the school’s policy on confidentiality. She always made sure the drawings her clients produced were kept confidential, even from parents. 

When asked if the services of an outside therapist in school may create labelling and stigma, Leung said such practices were common in Britain, where she obtained her qualification. Students may need time to get used to these professionals on campus, but it would help alleviate the burden on teachers and school-based social workers – described by some students as having “no headspace” to care for their emotional needs.

“I think any means that can allow students to have access to professional help is a good measure,” she said. 

Additional reporting: Hans Tse

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By Michael Boyle & Victoria Amaral

Hong Kong has struggled to return tourism to pre-covid levels, leading to the government seeking novel strategies for enticing visitors back to the city. One of the recent suggestions is the staging of monthly fireworks displays over Victoria Harbour at the cost of HK$1 million per show, which the government hopes will persuade tourists to “stay an extra night.”

Whether or not the questionable strategy proves successful in terms of visitor satisfaction, we can be sure of one thing: its negative impact on local wildlife. 

Research has shown that birds take flight en masse in response to fireworks displays in Europe. This has also been demonstrated in the USA, where scientists used radar to document 1,000 times more birds flying during firework displays on New Year’s Eve than would be expected normally.

Birds have also been recorded flying so far out to sea during fireworks displays that it would be impossible for them to make it back to shore. These effects are not localised, with significant disruption being caused to bird communities up to 10 kilometres away from the displays themselves.

Being stimulated to fly in the evening when they would otherwise be roosting is likely to be particularly harmful, as it drastically increases the chances of collision with buildings or encounters with predators. Moreover, it is known that noise pollution affects the breeding success of a wide variety of species, and monthly displays mean that it is inevitable that there will be impacts during breeding and migration seasons. 

Marine animals are also incredibly sensitive to sound. Hong Kong is home to an important population of Chinese white dolphins, also called pink dolphins for the blush appearance they acquire as adults. These unique mammals hunt in the murky waters spilling out from mouth of the Pearl River and rely on echo location and sound to hunt and communicate. It has been well documented that noise pollution negatively affects these dolphins, and firework displays directly over the ocean are likely to cause significant distress.

Hong Kong’s current dolphin population is expected to stand at around 2,500 individuals, however, the numbers of young dolphins have been in steady decline in recent years. Experts predict that this worrying trend may be related to increases in marine traffic noise during breeding seasons, and any increase to existing noise pollution would almost certainly exacerbate this phenomenon. 

Beyond the effects on wildlife, fireworks displays are known to cause significant distress to household pets including cats and dogs. Hong Kong is a city of pet lovers, with around 35 per cent of the population sharing their home with at least one animal.

Fireworks are among the most common cause of fear and anxiety responses in domestic dogs, which is considered a significant welfare concern.

The unexpected and particularly loud noises of fireworks can elicit responses such as trembling, salivating, hiding, destructive behaviours, loss of appetite and barking. It has also been shown that fireworks generate elevated levels of stress hormones such as cortisol in pets, which can lead to increased inflammation and general health concerns. 

Locals will be up all night

Unwanted noise is irritating, but for people living close to the harbour, it can also have negative health impacts. Close to the display, firework shows can reach up to 150 decibels or louder, which can lead to hearing damage in children and adults. Low frequency sounds, primarily from the boom, can travel much farther and have been shown to create sleep disruption and increase irritation.

But noise is not the only pollutant from fireworks. Large levels of particulate matter are also released into the atmosphere after a firework show, which are inhaled before settling on the landscape and in waterways. Particulate matter is harmful to respiratory and cardiovascular systems, and long term exposure is linked to early death.

A study from the US showed that an annual holiday fireworks display caused air pollution to spike 42 per cent – a short-lived but substantial amount. Unfortunately for Hong Kong, monthly fireworks may also coincide with bad air pollution days during the dry season, which will only  worsen the local air quality. 

Given these well-known and obvious problems, it begs the question; who exactly was involved in the consultation process for this decision? The government has its own Environmental Protection Department which pledges to “administer robust environmental impact assessment in the planning of major projects.” Was there any environmental impact assessment? If so, will it be made public?

There is also the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, whose job it is to “Conserve our natural environment and safeguard ecological integrity.” Did any of the trained conservation scientists and ecologists within AFCD raise concerns about the animal welfare issues related to monthly fireworks displays?

It is clear that people will have many questions about the decision making process behind these events but the biggest question of all remains; is all of this worth it just for a small number of tourists to “stay an extra night”?

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Hong Kong finance chief Paul Chan on Wednesday delivered his eighth budget, scrapping long-standing property taxes to revive a depressed housing market and scaling back relief measures for residents against a deficit that exceeded HK$100 billion for the second consecutive year.

Following the budget speech, Chief Executive John Lee said he shared Paul Chan’s “confidence and optimism in Hong Kong’s future,” while the city’s no. 2 official Eric Chan hailed the fiscal blueprint as “steadfastly seeks progress while ensuring stability.”

At the opposition-free legislature, lawmakers praised the budget as providing a timely intervention to stimulate the property market. But, outside the chamber, one remaining opposition party and NGOs raised concerns about the fiscal plan’s lacklustre support for residents facing economic hardship.

HKFP rounds up some of the reactions to the latest budget from major political parties and NGOs.

‘Appropriate and pragmatic’

The pro-Beijing Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB), the largest political party at the legislature, said on Wednesday that Paul Chan’s budget was “appropriate” and “pragmatic,” with measures to boost the economy and support businesses under a ballooning fiscal deficit.

“The latest budget is appropriate to the current situation, pragmatic and proactive,” said Gary Chan in Cantonese, DAB’s chairperson and a lawmaker.

He said the fiscal plan had adopted suggestions put forth by the DAB, including the move to scrap extra stamp duties and relax mortgage rules. He said it will create “favourable conditions” for reviving the housing market.

See also: Extra stamp duties axed in bid to revive housing market

Hong Kong’s housing market has slumped over the past three years, with property sales plunging from around 74,000 units in 2021 to 43,002 last year, according to the Land Registry. The government’s home price index fell for nine consecutive months to 306.4 in January, reverting to levels seen in 2016.

Paul Chan on Wednesday announced that extra stamp duties – the Special Stamp Duty on properties resold within 24 months, the Buyer’s Stamp Duty on non-locals, and the New Residential Stamp Duty on second-home buyers – would be axed with immediate effect.

Regina Ip, chairperson of the New People’s Party and the convenor of the Executive Council, also expressed support for the move, saying she believed more Hongkongers would be able to become homeowners after the withdrawal of property cooling measures.

Meanwhile, lawmakers from the Business and Professionals Alliance for Hong Kong celebrated the move to scrap the extra stamp duties – known colloquially as the “spicy measures” – by chopping prop chillies at a press briefing following the budget speech.

Relief measures reduced

Separately, Gary Chan said that the city’s financial situation did not allow for large-scale one-off relief measures, given the consecutive deficit and a dwindling fiscal reserve.

But Paul Chan still offered sweeteners totalling around HK$115 million in this year’s budget. Salaries and profits tax reductions were capped at HK$3,000, half of last year’s HK$6,000, though the consumption voucher scheme was scrapped.

Gary Chan said the priority should be put at boosting overall economic development so that residents could enjoy the profits of growth.

See also: No consumption vouchers as relief measures scaled back

Holden Chow, the DAB’s vice-chairperson, added that the government should be careful in planning its expenditure, and should ensure that the budget does not significantly increase the burden residents’ livelihoods.

But the opposition Democratic Party questioned why the government did not consider reducing the salaries of principal officials so as to demonstrate a spirit of togetherness with residents facing hardship.

“If officials can demonstrate an attitude of riding out the storm together with residents, people could feel that the government is addressing the situation in a concerted effort,” said chairperson Lo Kin-hei. “It’s a shame that the government did not mention [about official salary cuts], we are very disappointed.”

The Society for Community Organisation on Wednesday also said the relief measures were insufficient for the city’s low-income residents.

The anti-poverty NGO said the extra allowances provided for the elderly, disabled, and residents living on social security, do not fully cover the city’s underprivileged population, especially working class families with children.

It urged authorities to consider an additional HK$5,000 cash handout for low-income residents.

On tobacco tax

Also on Wednesday, the pro-business Liberal Party expressed “disappointment” with the increase in tobacco tax. Its chairperson Peter Shiu said the party supported people who wish to quit smoking, but it should be achieved through publicity work and education.

Paul Chan announced on Wednesday that the duty on cigarettes would rise by 80 cents per cigarette, or HK$16 for a pack of 20, with immediate effect. The move takes the price of a pack of cigarettes to around HK$96.

See also: Tobacco tax rises for second consecutive year to put public off smoking

“The significant increase in tobacco tax this time may lead to more illicit cigarettes in the market. It also adds more burden on low-income individuals,” Shiu added.

Additional reporting: James Lee & Kelly Ho.

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Hong Kong will push forward with a plan to create artificial islands off Lantau Island despite a lagging timetable, finance chief Paul Chan has said.

Chan told reporters on Wednesday afternoon – after delivering his budget address for the 2024-25 fiscal year – that reclamation for the Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands project, which was originally slated to begin in 2025, would be delayed by “a little.”

Its development would also “lag behind” that of the Northern Metropolis – another project intended to provide more than tens of thousands of homes and jobs by integrating development projects in the northern New Territories.

“We have to give consideration to the public finance position… we may have to defer the project a bit further than 2025,” Chan said in Cantonese in response to a reporter’s question. “But we will definitely go ahead with it.”

He added that a technical feasibility study will have to be conducted before taking the project forward.

Both the Kau Yi Chau islands and Northern Metropolis plans would drive land supply, Chan said. The islands, however, were less of a priority, he added.

The Committee on the Financing of Major Development Projects, led by Chan, has reviewed how to adopt an “orderly and phased approach” in developing the Northern Metropolis, the finance chief said in his speech that morning.

“We plan to issue bonds of about HK$95 billion to HK$135 billion per annum in the next five years to drive the development of the Northern Metropolis and other infrastructure projects,” Chan said.

The government will continue to conduct relevant studies for the Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands project and “will take into account various factors including the public finance position” in considering its concrete implementation timetable, he continued.

Authorities have said the artificial islands, originally slated for completion in 2033, would provide 190,000 to 210,000 residential flats and around 4 million square metres of office space in its commercial district.

A government source told HKFP on Wednesday morning that reclamation for the islands would be delayed from the initial schedule of 2025, but did not mention when it was expected to begin.

The source said the Development Bureau was still in the initial stages of planning and designing the artificial islands, and that it hoped the statutory environmental impact assessment process could begin by the end of 2024.

Preliminary processes would have to be completed before the Financial Services and Treasury Bureau could handle the financing plan for the islands, another source said.

The project has already been met with considerable controversy and criticism, with Liber Research Community saying it could have “incalculable” ecological impacts, and a survey finding that that over half of respondents said they were worried that the project would be a burden on public finances.

Over half also said they were not confident that the project could fulfil its promise of becoming a core business district.

A proposal for reclaiming land in Lantau’s eastern waters and creating a new urban centre was introduced by former chief executive Leung Chun-ying in 2014. His successor, Carrie Lam, turned the plan into one of her flagship policy schemes. Under Lam, it became known as Lantau Tomorrow Vision – and drew controversy.

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Hong Kong’s tobacco tax will be increased for the second year in a row, taking the price of a pack of cigarettes from HK$80 to HK$96.

Finance chief Paul Chan announced on Wednesday that the duty on cigarettes would rise by 80 cents per cigarette, or HK16 for a pack of 20, with immediate effect.

The move was to provide “greater incentives” for people to quit smoking and to safeguard public health.

“We expect that the proportion of tobacco duty in the retail price of cigarettes will rise to about 70 per cent, gradually approaching the 75 per cent level recommended by the World Health Organisation,” Chan said in Cantonese.

The government increased its tobacco tax in early 2023 for the first time since 2014, increasing 60 cents for one stick, bring one pack of cigarettes to HK$72 to HK$80.

Hong Kong Economic Times reported on Wednesday that an owner of a newspaper stand who sold cigarettes said that business had been slow after revenue from tobacco sales had dropped 70 per cent since last year’s tobacco tax rise.

Separately, some newspaper stall holders told HK01 on Wednesday that some people had purchased several packs of cigarettes ahead of the government’s announcement.

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Two people were killed and three others remained missing after an empty cargo ship struck a bridge in southern China on Thursday, causing part of it to collapse, authorities and state media reported.

The Guangzhou maritime affairs bureau said the collision sent five vehicles, including a motorbike, tumbling off the bridge and either into the water or onto the ship below.

The container vessel was travelling between the cities of Foshan and Guangzhou when it rammed the Lixinsha Bridge at around 5:30 am (2130 GMT), state broadcaster CCTV said.

The boat “came into contact with… the bridge pillars, causing the roadway above to collapse”, CCTV reported.

As of 10 am, “two people have been rescued, two have died, one crew member has been lightly injured, and three people remain missing”, the Guangzhou bureau said in an online statement.

Footage broadcast by CCTV showed rescue personnel in orange jumpsuits racing in dinghies across a murky waterway towards a high bridge with a yawning gap in its middle.

Other patrol boats flashed their lights as they circled the area where the collapse took place, though the cargo ship appeared to have been towed away.

Photos published by CCTV earlier on Friday showed the red and white vessel lodged at a diagonal angle between two of the bridge’s pillars as water cascaded out of severed pipes onto its deck, where some debris was visible.

The maritime bureau said the cause of the incident was “under investigation, and rescue work is proceeding at full strength and in good order”.

CCTV reported that dozens of rescuers had been dispatched to the scene, including reinforcements from the nearby tech hub of Shenzhen.

The ship’s owner has been brought under “control”, the broadcaster said.

The region where the collision took place is a major industrial and manufacturing area crisscrossed by a dense network of shipping routes.

Similar accidents have occurred in China before, including in 2012 when a newly built cruise liner bumped into a bridge in the eastern city of Wenzhou, causing no casualties.

In 2007, nine people were killed when a cargo vessel struck a 1,600-meter-long bridge in southern Guangdong province, causing a section of it to collapse.

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Severe weather warnings were in place across swathes of China on Wednesday as temperatures plummeted across the south and Beijing shivered in snowy conditions.

Authorities renewed an orange alert — the highest in the country’s three-tier system — warning that average temperatures in the south could fall by six to 12 degrees Celsius (43 to 53 Fahrenheit) by Friday.

In some areas, the mercury could plunge by over 20C, the National Meteorological Center (NMC) said on social media.

State news agency Xinhua said the NMC had “called on local governments to take precautions against the cold weather, advised the public to keep warm, and called for necessary measures to protect crops and aquatic products”.

In Beijing, where temperatures hovered around freezing on Wednesday, residents awoke to find the capital blanketed in white following an overnight snowfall.

Traffic slowed to a crawl on the city’s highways, while snow-dusted pavements proved treacherous for commuters and cyclists.

Municipal authorities said up to 4.1 centimetres (1.6 inches) of snow had fallen in some suburban areas and issued a warning over icy roads.

“It is recommended that residents… stagger their travel, use public buses and subways, drive their own cars slowly and pay attention to safety,” the city government said in an online statement Tuesday evening.

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An explosion of butterfly sightings in Hong Kong may be linked to the unusually warm winter weather, experts have suggested, with habitat loss also leading to more frequent sightings in the city.

Red-base Jezebel butterflies, or Delias pasithoe, have been spotted – often motionless – around country parks, as well as urban areas, with social media users concerned about a mass “die off.”

Director of the Hong Kong Biodiversity Museum Benoit Guénard told HKFP that butterflies, like all insects, cannot regulate their internal temperatures and rely on the environment to do so. “In the morning they may start flying while being warmed up by a few sunrays, but are then quickly short in energy, allowing them to land whenever they can (often in the shade),” Guénard told HKFP by email on Thursday.

“Many people then think they are dead (or dying) but if you gently pick them up, close your hands and blow hot air in for 10-20 seconds, you will see the butterfly taking off again and flying happily,” he said, adding that many end up being crushed in the process of warming up as people walked by.

Guénard said the adult lifespan of a red-base Jezebel was a few days or weeks, and their population appeared healthy, with eggs, caterpillars and chrysalis easily found.

“[A]lternated periods of cooling and mild weather… may have generated several waves of adult activities during the [dry season],” Guénard said, adding that it was not possible to conclude that the climate crisis was to blame.

Urbanisation threat

Timothy C. Bonebrake – a professor at the University of Hong Kong’s School of Biological Sciences – shared a graph of red-base Jezebel sightings with HKFP, suggesting an “anomaly” this year.

“We have indeed had a warmer than usual winter and my best guess is that the large numbers… we’re seeing are related to this,” he said by email on Thursday.

“[T]hese species are facing an array of challenges to their survival including habitat loss through urbanization and climate change,” he said.

He added that what may be perceived as a “mass die-off,” could also be a case of “mass birthing.”

But Bonebrake also expressed concern over the number of “disoriented” red-base Jezebels seen in the city. “Anytime we see a butterfly on the street, we can categorically define it as
unnatural. This always strikes me; how difficult it can be for animals in Hong Kong to traverse our complex urban landscape,” he said.

“This winter we’re seeing the phenomena at a much higher level and their presence in unfamiliar circumstances should serve as a reminder to everyone that we share this city with a wild and diverse community of plants and animals.”

He said the late boom in numbers could “affect pollination in complicated ways.” Additionally, Bonebrake said a colleague had noted a lower abundance of migrant birds in Hong Kong, which eat the red-base Jezebels.

The Hong Kong Observatory said January saw a monthly mean temperature of 17.9 degrees Celsius – 1.4 degrees above normal, and one of the sixth warmest Januarys on record.

“January 2024 was overall warmer than usual in Hong Kong despite a very cold episode in the latter part of the month,” it said in a February 2 press release.

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A rare snow-white sparrow has caught the attention of Hong Kong birdwatchers and photographers in Sai Ying Pun.

HKFP’s photographer, Kyle Lam, captured the elusive white-featured bird alongside some of its more common counterparts in Sun Yat Sen Memorial Park.

The bird could have a genetic condition known as leucism, whereby a lack of melanin pigment results in a partial white appearance. There is also a chance the striking plumage is a result of albinism, though few sparrows survive with the condition.

Yahoo News reported that several dozen observers have been coming to the park in recent days, though the bird appeared to be undisturbed.

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China and the United States will meet Tuesday in Beijing to resume stalled talks on stemming the production of ingredients for the drug fentanyl.

The synthetic opioid, many times more powerful than heroin, has caused an epidemic of addiction in the United States, with 100,000 overdose deaths a year, making it the leading cause of death of people aged 18 to 49, US officials have said.

Washington hopes to get China to cooperate on tackling companies that manufacture the precursor chemicals to make fentanyl and on cutting financing for the trade.

Tuesday’s meeting will include high-level US officials from the State Department, Treasury, Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department, Washington has said.

The United States says it will “provide a platform to facilitate ongoing coordination designed to tackle the illicit production, financing, and distribution of illicit drugs”.

China has not said who from its side will attend the meeting.

President Xi Jinping pledged during a summit with US President Joe Biden in November to clamp down on the trade.

“For years bilateral cooperation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China on counternarcotics has been suspended which has hindered our progress,” a US official said last week.

“But that changed during the November 15 meeting,” the official told reporters on condition of anonymity.

Since the summit China has shut down one company, blocked some international payments and resumed sharing information on shipments and trafficking, added the official.

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A three-tier emergency mechanism for tackling student suicide risk amid a recent rise in cases in Hong Kong has been extended to the end of 2024, the government has announced.

A two-month cross-departmental collaboration that aimed to help Hong Kong schools identify students with higher suicidal risk and provide them with early support will continue until the end of this year, the government said on Monday.

The mechanism was rolled out in December, as the city saw an upward trend in youth suicides since the school year began in September. The Education Bureau (EDB) received 31 reports of suspected student suicides from schools in the first 11 months of 2023, the highest number in 10 years.

The government said at the time that the Covid-19 pandemic had caused an “unprecedented impact” on the mental health of Hongkongers, including students, who faced “greater adjustment challenges” after the full resumption of normalcy.

Three tiers

The first layer of the mechanism focused on assisting schools with early identification of students with mental health needs and providing timely and appropriate intervention. The second tier involved organising an off-campus support network – coordinated by the Social Welfare Department (SWD) – to help schools when they did not have sufficient manpower to cater to the students’ needs.

School principals may also refer students with severe mental health needs to public psychiatrists under the Hospital Authority (HA) as the last resort within the three-tier system. Those identified as urgent cases would be given priority.

“The third tier is the last line of defence, providing medical services to students with severe mental-health needs,” a government statement issued on Monday read.

As of mid-January, the HA had received a total of 50 cases referred by school principals to the psychiatric department, local media reported on Monday.

The EDB said it would offer more than 40 training courses and workshops for schools from the end of January to March to equip them with counselling techniques and intervention strategies. It would also collaborate with the SWD to arrange NGO visits to secondary schools between February and April, in the hope of raising mental health awareness among students and encouraging them to seek help.

“The government will continue to strengthen cross-departmental collaboration for more comprehensive efforts in promoting students’ mental health, with a view to helping schools and parents support students with mental-health needs, thereby building a stronger safety net for them,” the government said.

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The fiasco over Hong Kong’s solid waste charging scheme – the start of which has been further postponed, from April 1 to August 1 – highlights shortcomings in the way the government works and its failure to learn from the past.

Solid waste charging is an important policy to reduce the amount of waste going into landfills and is part of Hong Kong’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

The policy has been discussed or been on the books for many years, and seemingly endlessly postponed. The government claims that the public does not understand it and that more education and persuasion is necessary. This is only part of the story. 

First, our leaders appear not to have understood that the policy affects every resident. Its impact is wider than, say, the e-toll policy that mainly affected drivers and vehicle owners. Because of this, it needs a whole-of-government approach to its implementation.

We can easily see the many sectors and interests involved. They include the Social Welfare Department for residential care homes, the managers of which have expressed concerns about the cost; the Housing Department for public housing estates; the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD), for cleaning contractors; the Home Affairs Department for district councils and community care teams; private property management companies; the Information Services Department for publicity and education; and probably many others.

Given the wide impact of the policy and the consequences of repeated failure for the reputation of the government, the chief secretary for administration could lead a task force bringing together these sectors and interests. Failing a whole-of-government approach, can we have confidence that the policy will be successfully implemented on August 1? The policy is not just a propaganda and education matter, nor is it – nor should it be – just the responsibility of the Environment and Ecology Bureau. Our leaders appear not to have realised this.

Second, the government has some resources that it apparently has so far failed to use. We have new-look district councils peopled with hundreds of councillors who we are told have deep connections to the communities they serve. If this is true, where are they? What has been their role in implementing the policy? They can visit every public and private housing estate to understand whether each has a solid waste charging scheme implementation plan, and if not, why not, and help them prepare one.

I do not mean asking District Offices to make few phone calls. District councillors themselves need to go into the community, working on this. Each housing estate, whether public or private, has its own problems. Some of these are common, but many are peculiar to the estate. These include how rubbish is currently collected (by rubbish chutes, manually by cleaners, manually by residents, for example); whether the FEHD or private contractors collect the rubbish; whether there is an owners’ corporation and if not, how to organise residents.

So far, I have seen little involvement from these people’s representatives. Mobilising district councils, not just to talk and attend meetings, requires the Home Affairs Bureau to step up and take responsibility. Where is it in all of this?

Third, the waste charging scheme policy requires the active participation of every resident in Hong Kong. The policy is co-produced by the government, business, civil society, and the public. Co-production requires careful attention to the incentives to reduce waste. The capacity of various sectors and individuals to comply with the policy varies.

These impacts need to be clearly understood and mitigated for effective implementation. The policy requires a change of culture in Hong Kong, from wastefulness to sustainability. In Hong Kong we waste many valuable resources, such as water, food, and packaging.

Changing culture is a difficult process that needs a targeted approach to Hong Kong’s various communities, focusing on incentives for sustainability, not just repeatedly explaining the policy. Authorities must address the varying impact on different sectors of society and social classes. Have they done this? Again, this requires a whole-of-government approach.

Fourth, the frequent postponing of this policy calls into question the government’s commitment to environmental sustainability. In its headlong rush to redevelop Hong Kong – see its Northern Metropolis or Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands plans – the government has either ignored environmental groups speaking for sustainability or perceived that they must be placated.

If the government were committed to sustainability, authorities would work with civil society to achieve this common aim. The solid waste charging scheme fiasco reveals that the government at the top did not understand the importance of the policy or its wide impact.  

Taking these problems together we see in this episode deficiencies that have appeared in the governments’ work before. Lack of leadership, mixed and ineffective communication, and fundamental coordination problems also characterised the government’s approach to the Covid-19 vaccination programme, especially for the elderly and those living in residential care homes. A consequence was the highest death rate in the world from Covid-19.

This raises the question of how the government learns. Although the sectors were somewhat different, the implementation problems were the same. Had the authorities learned lessons from the past, the solid waste charging policy might be ready to go now. 

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Our government is now grappling with a policy dilemma of the kind which is, sadly, particularly difficult for regimes which have dispensed with such luxuries as electoral politics and independent media: what sort of health service do we want?

This is the matter of principle behind the public musings of officials and politicians – including Chief Executive John Lee – about whether there should be an increase in the small fee charged to users of the Accident and Emergency departments of public hospitals.

At the moment this is fixed at $180. This has crept up over the years. The reason given for further tinkering is the number of people turning up in accident and emergency departments with conditions which are neither the result of an accident nor an emergency.

Officials describe this as “abuse” of the service. Let us note first of all that unjustified visits to local hospitals in some number are to be expected. After all, potential patients are not doctors. It may be obvious to the medically qualified that the situation is not urgent; the patient may sincerely believe that it is.

Looking back on my personal record I can count six A and E visits: two in which I arrived in an ambulance, two which led to either stitches or immediate admission to a ward, and two cases of “abuse.” One of these was a request for help with a disintegrated and very painful tooth. The doctor could not provide anything stronger than aspirin for out-patients, and suggested washing my mouth with Scotch whisky, which worked. The other was a panic attack over a possible medicine mix-up, which had not in fact taken place: the young man fished out of the psychology department to help me was kind enough to say that I was right to seek help, just in case.

I infer from this unscientific sample that even a responsible citizen wealthy enough to use private facilities and happy to do so will in the long run develop some A and E visits, about one third of which will turn out to be unnecessary.

As a parent one also tends to be alarmist. Small children are generally not very good at describing their symptoms, if they can talk at all. I imagine few parents have not on occasion rushed to the nearest hospital, with an ensuing anticlimax. Many of us, including me, have also incurred barely hidden disapproval from a doctor who thought we should have come sooner.

The conclusion from all this is that even in a perfect world there will be quite a lot of arrivals in A and E which turn out to be erroneous. Whether the incidence is unusually high in Hong Kong we have not been told. I note, though, that in England, where emergency service is free, this was not a frequent complaint at all.

What seems to be bothering the Secretary for Health is the thought that people are deliberately choosing their local A and E because it is cheaper than a private GP. One idea he is toying with is to raise the A and E fee to the minimum sum a private doctor might charge for a visit. Another is to have a sort of sliding scale: if you arrive in a pool of blood it’s cheap, if you arrive with sniffles you pay extra.

This suggests some confusion about how our medical system is supposed to work. In the colonial days health was a matter of markets for the rich and charity for the poor. The poor did not do very well out of this.

Then Sir Murray Maclehose was sent to Hong Kong with instructions to turn the city into a colony of which a UK Labour government need not be ashamed. This produced, as well as a lot of public housing, an expectation that there would be enough clinics and hospitals to provide, at least for the grassroots, a service as good as that provided to the prosperous by the private sector.

This did not produce an imitation of the British National Health Service, in which most doctors are paid and hospitals built by the state, and treatment is generally free or nearly free. Nor did it follow the model popular in Europe, with health insurance provided at the public expense for everyone who could not afford their own.

It did embody the progressive consensus that, as the philosopher Michael Sandel puts it, “there are some things that money should not buy.” Patients could choose to “go private” but inhabitants of both sectors assured them that the medical procedures offered were the same. Private hospitals offered nicer surroundings and, as one doctor told me when considering a range of private venues for an event which I would anyway sleep through, “a Coke costs more in the Mandarin than in 7-11 but it’s the same Coke.”

The consensus that our health system should offer nearly free care to anyone who needed it was somewhat corroded in the 2000s, when some senior officials seem to have come under the influence of Milton Friedman, or indeed of Ayn Rand. Charges were introduced for some expensive medicines. One can only feel grateful that the health machinery was not subjected to the same surreptitious sabotage as the public housing programme.

But where we are is still, in principle, a health service which provides a full range of services to anyone who needs it, at affordable or no cost. I infer that it is quite inappropriate to compare the cost of an A and E visit with the cost of a visit to a private doctor. It is not the job of the government to drum up business for private practitioners.

If excessive reliance on A and E is a problem, the solution should be to divert people with minor complaints to the district clinics set up to deal precisely with out-patient problems. They are generally even cheaper. The money is not the issue here.

There was an interesting piece in one of the public prints last month by two researchers of the Our Hong Kong Foundation, in which they pointed out that old people were particularly likely to turn up in emergency rooms (as indeed they are to turn up in hospitals generally). But experiments by the Housing Association and others had shown that with guidance and help at home seniors could be persuaded to greatly reduce their A and E appearances.

The authors also made some other good suggestions. In the evening the options for people feeling ill are quite limited. Clinics close, private doctors knock off work. The hospital may be the only place open. This is a good point. The only medics working evenings in our neck of the woods are vets.

Another interesting idea is to provide an out-patient clinic next to the emergency facilities to which patients in need of less dramatic help can be politely shunted.

No doubt these and other helpful suggestions would all cost money. They still seem more attractive than extracting what will in effect be fines from elderly hypochondriacs. And the more expensive you make a hospital, the more likely it is that patients who really need treatment will delay it for financial reasons.

If money is a problem, though, the government could reconsider the arrangement under which Accident and Emergency service is provided absolutely free to civil servants, former civil servants and former civil servants’ spouses.

This would have the added advantage that decisions about raising fees would be made by people who would themselves have to pay them, which always helps.

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Mental health in Hong Kong was forced front of mind last June after two women were fatally stabbed in a shopping mall in an apparently random attack. Reports that the suspect had been diagnosed with a serious mental health condition were quick to emerge, sparking discussions rife with often alarmist inaccuracies.

Carol Liang, deputy CEO of mental health charity Mind HK, was among those trying to fight the false assumptions.

“When that happened… I immediately had to write a response; ‘not everyone with a mental health condition will be violent.’ That is the main message that I wanted to get across, that actually the majority of people with a mental health problem are not violent at all, they’re more likely to be the ones… on the other end of it,” Liang told HKFP’s podcast Yum Cha.

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Combating the stigma surrounding mental health is central to Liang’s role at Mind HK. She has been with the organisation since its genesis in 2017, and has noticed a change in awareness of mental health over the years.

Events such as the double mall murder have, Liang said, “quite a big impact in the way that perceive mental health.”

“In some sense it was positive in that it created an urgency to do something about this… [to implement] structural changes,” Liang said.

The Covid-19 pandemic, too, “really brought mental health as a topic of concern,” she added, saying that because everybody was “experiencing the same problem,” they felt more comfortable discussing how they were feeling.

“In a way, it helped normalise the conversation a bit,” Liang said.

However, just because people were talking about mental health it did not mean they were becoming more accepting of it, according to studies conducted by Mind HK.

“What we found from our recent research in June is that there’s been a huge interest in mental health… but the interesting part was that stigma didn’t really improve… it got worse,” Liang said.

She cited what she called “concerning statistics,” saying that “58 per cent of people in our study said that they would stop being friends with someone if they had a mental health condition, and 38 per cent said that that they would not be willing to work with someone [with a mental health condition].”

Such stigma also impacted Hongkongers’ relationship with their own well-being, Liang said. “Our research found that about 60, 62 per cent of people who have a diagnosable mental health condition don’t disclose it to anybody… not their husband, their wife, their friend, their partner, their colleague,” she said.

“People really do experience this in isolation, and I think that a problem is that people are not accessing help because of the stigma and how strong it is here.”

Those who do seek help are sometimes unsure who to turn to. Some see their family doctor, while others go straight to a psychiatrist. “That, generally, is something we’re looking to change… sometimes you do need to go see a psychiatrist, but not everyone,” Liang said.

Access to mental health professionals was an issue, too, with public psychiatry services in such high demand that appointments last around five minutes and private mental health care often prohibitively expensive.

Mind HK has sought to “provide a layer within the system” by training what it calls “well-being practitioners.”

“Really, they’re there to provide support to individuals experiencing mild to moderate mental health conditions, mostly anxiety and depression, because they are the most common,” Liang said.

Following the stabbings in June, the government consulted its mental health advisory board and put forward “enhanced measures” to improve mental health support in the city. Months later, when Chief Executive John Lee delivered the second Policy Address of his tenure, these suggestions were included in it.

Time will tell whether that showed a shift in the official approach to managing mental health in the city, but Liang said it was “promising” that the issue had been acknowledged in October’s Policy Address, even if very little of it was new. From 2019 until 2022, mental health was not mentioned at all by the city’s leader in setting out the administrative vision for the year ahead.

Among the suggestions mentioned by Lee was a mental health literacy resource kit for school students, which Liang said “makes a lot of sense.”

“We’ve seen that one of the main areas of concern in Hong Kong is the mental health of not only the elderly, which is a very vulnerable group, but also the youth,” Liang said. “We have these suicide rates that are rising, young people had a really difficult time during Covid, they were probably the most impacted, so I think it’s right that there needs to be better mental health literacy within school… and not only kids but parents and teachers.”

Friends, too, can play a role. “Studies always show, especially among youth, the first person a person goes to when they are experiencing symptoms, they don’t want it to be a professional, they want it to be a peer,” Liang said, adding that it was “really important to normalise [mental health] and have those conversations, because what can be detrimental to a person is when they suffer alone.”

“We all have mental health… it’s a spectrum that we all go up and down on… throughout our lives… arguably, there is no such thing as physical or mental health – it’s just health.”

HKFP Yum Cha

The final episode of the first season of HKFP Yum Cha – which features a diverse range of voices, from artists to scientists, who share their perspective on Hong Kong as it is today – will be released next Saturday.

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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By Qian Ye and Greg Baker

It’s just after midday in a quiet studio in Beijing, and Xuan Yi is finally getting the deep sleep she’s craved for months.

Xuan is one of an estimated 300 million Chinese people suffering from insomnia, the product of a high-stress, high-pressure culture that has left many young people choosing to “lie flat” instead.

She tried everything, she tells AFP — from psychological counselling to essential oils.

“I had a lot of work pressure. I could not go to bed before 2 or 3 am and had to get up at 7 am to start work,” she says.

“I also worked weekends, and my sleep was not very good for a long time.”

But when the curtains close and the singing bowls start humming at healer Li Yan’s studio, she can finally drift off.

To the sounds of a gong, Ukrainian water drum, rainstick and handpans, Xuan and her fellow millennials enter a gentle slumber.

Fifty minutes later, they awake after what they say is the best sleep they’ve had in years — at a cost of 180 yuan (US$25).

“Dozens of people with tense minds lay down together and want to give their brains a short break,” Li tells AFP.

“It’s like charging your cell phone battery from three percent to 100 percent.”

‘Lie flat concerts’

“Pressure”, “anxiety” and “insomnia” are the words Li hears most often.

She says she often fields calls from clients desperate for a break.

“I need this therapy right away, in half an hour, I’m so tired,” Li says they tell her.

Many come from China’s competitive IT industry, which has some of the highest incidents of depression and anxiety in the country, according to a National White Paper on Health.

Giants like Alibaba — whose ex-CEO Jack Ma was notorious for demanding that his employees work long hours — have even used Li’s sessions as team-building exercises.

Li calls her work “lie flat concerts”, a reference to a popular meme extolling the virtues of trading the high-pressure life for something a little more easygoing.

But the singing bowls also tie into another growing trend: “short escapes”, in which young people snatch small, zen moments for themselves to escape the daily grind.

Happiness a ‘luxury good’

Surrounded by office buildings in the heart of Beijing, Li’s studio offers time slots tailored to the busy routines of young workers.

She says she has seen growing demand in the so-called sleep economy since the Covid-19 pandemic, which the World Health Organization says sparked a 25 percent increase in incidents of depression and anxiety worldwide in its first year.

“Many emotions and problems have come to the surface and people need to deal with their inner selves,” according to Li.

“Many are actively seeking solutions since the pandemic.”

And in a country where many turn to video games or shopping to unwind, she says, “relaxation and happiness seem to be a luxury good”.

Xuan, for one, is happy to shell out for some decent sleep.

“If I don’t pay for these healing sessions, I might have to pay for the doctor.”

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Government-authorised plastic trash bags have gone on sale ahead of the recently-postponed, controversial, city-wide waste charging scheme.

The different-sized bags are now available in Circle K stores. They will be on sale in other venues including 7-eleven and supermarkets starting from February.

Secretary for Environment and Ecology Tse Chin-wa announced last Friday that authorities had decided to postpone the roll out of its already delayed “pay-as-you-throw” waste tax until August, citing public concerns about the scheme’s complexity.

The scheme requires Hongkongers to purchase government-authorised bags to dispose of their rubbish or risk a HK$1,500 fine. It aims to encourage the public to throw away less. Some government buildings will start a pilot scheme of the waste tax before August, Tse said.

On Friday morning, Tse met district councillors to explain the waste tax and the use of authorised bags. He also invited local councillors to help promote the scheme across the community.

The official said that the public should go to venues accredited by the Environmental Protection Department to purchase authorised bags. They should also be wary of fake bags, he said.

“The government will combat any places that sell counterfeit bags, ” Tse in Cantonese.

He added that authorities are considering which government buildings will take part in the pilot scheme.

According to the government, the bags will come in nine different sizes, ranging from three litres to to 100 litres, with each litre costing HK$0.11. They will be made available for purchase from 4,000 supermarkets, convenience stores, post offices, vending machines across the city, and online.

Four contractors

The Environmental Protection Department announced last August that four Hong Kong companies had won bids for nine contracts to produce the designated bags. Production started in October.

According to the government, the four contractors are Chun Hing Plastic Packaging Manufactory Limited, Enviro-Sense GreenTech Co. Limited, Nicole Universal Company Limited and Liveability Limited.

Ming Pao reported last August that each contracted supplier was expected to produce approximately 300 million bags, with a contract duration of 38 months.

According to the Environmental Protection Department’s website, the estimated contract value ranges from around HK$80 million to around HK$182 million per contract.

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Authorities will step up enforcement actions against unauthorised street hawkers in Sham Shui Po over the Lunar New Year holiday, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) has told a District Council meeting.

In a document submitted to the Sham Shui Po District Council on Friday, the department said it would implement patrols and clearance operations on main roads and at hawker blackspots, with increased deployments and extended duty hours, InMedia reported.

The Lunar New Year holiday will run from February 10 to 14.

The department made 25 unauthorised hawking prosecutions between December 1 and January 15, according to the document.

The FEHD listed blackspots on Kweilin Street, Ki Lung Street, Pei Ho Street, Tai Nan Street, Cheung Sha Wan Road, Apliu Street, Nam Cheong Street, Yen Chow Street, Yu Chau Street, Lai Chi Kok Road, Hai Tan Street, Fuk Wah Street, Fuk Wing Street and Berwick Street, InMedia reported.

The department said officers would adopt specific, more relaxed enforcement strategies for elderly or disabled hawkers, employing a “warning first, then enforcement” mechanism, whereby prosecution would be carried out if verbal warnings were ineffective.

FEHD officers’ confiscation of a licensed 90-year-old street hawker last March drew criticism after videos of the incident circulated widely online. It was reported that she had left her cart with a relative while using the bathroom.

The FEHD would also conduct publicity and education campaigns at different locations to advise and warn shops and vendors not to place goods on sidewalks or sell them without a licence, it said in its submission.

The department said that it would hang banners and distribute leaflets in different languages at hawker black spots, as it did last year, to advise the public against unlicensed hawking and purchasing goods from unlicensed hawkers.

Sham Shui Po District Councillor Nicole Lau said this Lunar New Year would be the first since the city’s return to “normalcy,” and that she supported the enhanced hawker patrols.

She added that Lunar New Year festivities would come amid a citywide “vibes” campaign featuring lights displays and night markets.

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Twelve people have been taken into police custody for their alleged role in a deadly fire in central China’s Jiangxi province, state media said Thursday.

At least 39 people died and nine were injured after a fire broke out at a store in the city of Xinyu Wednesday.

President Xi Jinping called for “deep reflection” after the fire and greater efforts to “curb the frequent occurrence of safety accidents”.

Citing local authorities, state news agency Xinhua reported that the cause of the blaze had been the “illegal” use of fire by workers in the store’s basement.

“Heavy smoke soon engulfed the first and second floor, trapping students at training facilities there and people in a hotel,” Xinhua quoted the city’s mayor Xu Hong as saying.

Twelve people have been taken into custody and are under investigation by police for their alleged role in the fire, Xinhua said.

Wednesday’s fire came just days after a late-evening blaze at a school in central China’s Henan province killed 13 students.

And in November, 26 people were killed and dozens were sent to hospital after a fire at a coal company office in northern China’s Shanxi province.

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Frost formed on Tai Mo Shan in Hong Kong, as the city’s highest mountain recorded a low of -2.4 degrees Celsius amid a cold snap on Tuesday.

Branches were frozen over on the mountain while the mercury plummeted into sub-zero temperatures. The wintry spell attracted frost chasers, who hiked up the mountain to catch sight of the icy foliage.

Temperatures in the city’s urban areas dipped to 6 degrees on Tuesday. Under the influence of an intense winter monsoon, the Hong Kong Observatory predicted that Wednesday will see urban lows of 7 degrees Celsius and highs of 12 degrees Celsius.

But the temperature will gradually rise during the rest of the week, the Observatory said, with Thursday set to see a minimum temperature of 10 degrees Celsius ahead of a rainy weekend. Highs of 20 degrees Celsius are forecast to return next Monday.

Words by Shan Chan.

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The death toll from a landslide that struck a remote and mountainous part of southwestern China reached 20 on Tuesday, state media said, as rescuers raced to find those still trapped under the debris.

The pre-dawn landslide buried 18 homes and sparked the evacuation of more than 200 people when it struck in Zhenxiong County, Yunnan province early Monday.

More than 30 hours since the disaster, twenty people have been confirmed dead, state broadcaster CCTV said.

Twenty-four remain missing, the report added.

State news agency Xinhua said rescue workers are now in a “race against time” to find those still missing, after a night of sub-zero temperatures.

“Search and rescue efforts persisted through the night,” firefighter Li Shenglong told Xinhua.

Wu Junyao, director of the natural resources and planning bureau of Zhaotong, told Xinhua that the disaster “resulted from a collapse in the steep cliff area atop the slope”.

Two hundred rescue workers have been dispatched to the scene as well as dozens of fire engines and other equipment.

The site is covered in thick snow and rescuers are “using all kinds of tools to search for survivors”, Xinhua reported.

Wu said the rescuers are digging through collapsed debris of “100 meters in width, 60 meters in height, with an average thickness of around 6 meters”.

CCTV showed footage of rescue workers digging through twisted metal and concrete overnight in a bid to find survivors.

Other CCTV footage showed locals huddling for warmth around a fire in a shelter, eating instant noodles.

People from the surrounding area have chipped in to to help with relief efforts, state media said.

“Our main focus is on distributing supplies, cooking, and delivering food to those in need,” Hong Jie, a 38-year-old resident of a nearby village, told Xinhua.

‘All-out efforts’

Chinese President Xi Jinping Monday ordered “all-out” rescue efforts.

Landslides are common in Yunnan, a far-flung and largely impoverished region of China where steep mountain ranges butt against the Himalayan plateau.

Monday’s disaster occurred in a rural area surrounded by towering peaks dusted with snow, state media footage showed.

China has experienced a string of natural disasters in recent months, some following extreme weather events such as sudden, heavy downpours.

Rainstorms last September in the southern region of Guangxi triggered a mountain landslide that killed at least seven people, according to media reports.

In August, heavy rains sparked a similar disaster near the northern city of Xi’an, killing more than 20 people.

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A pandemic expert has urged the public to get mRNA vaccines as the city sees a rise in the prevalence of Covid-19, dominated by a new variant: jn.1.

Ivan Hung, chair professor of infectious diseases at the Department of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, told RTHK on Sunday that a spike in Covid-19 infections may last until the end of the Lunar New Year holiday in mid-February.

The virus has been on the rise over the past few weeks, the Centre for Health Protection said in its weekly briefing last Wednesday, adding that jn.1 has become the most prevalent strain in the city.

Hung said that, while most jn.1 infections caused mild symptoms, the variant involves higher transmissibility than XBB, a variant previously prevalent in Hong Kong. Both XBB and jn.1 are variants belonging to the Omicron BA.2 strain.

The expert urged the public, especially the elderly and those with any long term illness, to get mRNA vaccines before Lunar New year holiday as inactivated vaccines are not effective in dealing with Covid-19 variants.

He added that XBB mRNA vaccines, which are currently available in Hong Kong, are nevertheless effective in reducing risks of serious illness or death causing by jn.1 infections.

2024 winter influenza season

Aside from Covid-19, the city has also entered winter influenza season. David Hui, professor and chairman at the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said on TVB in early January that the city saw the beginning of influenza season on January 8.

Hui expected the season would last 12 to 14 weeks, but there was a low risk of community outbreak as 47 per cent of people aged over 65 have received vaccines, whilst over 80 per cent of people living in residential care homes have received jabs.

XBB vaccines

The Hong Kong government rolled out the first phase of the XBB Covid-19 vaccine plan last December, offering free vaccination services for adult residents at residential care homes and the elderly aged 65 or above. 

Since January 18, the plan has been extended to a second phase, covering other high-risk groups.

Hongkongers aged 50 to 64, adults aged 18 to 49 with underlying comorbidities, persons aged 6 months or above and with immunocompromising conditions, pregnant women and healthcare workers can get free XBB Covid-19 vaccination at designated medical facilities. Others must approach private clinics.

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Hong Kong is experiencing a cold snap with lows of 6 degrees Celsius, and highs of 10 degrees Celsius, predicted for Tuesday.

“An intense winter monsoon and upper-air disturbance will affect Guangdong in the next couple of days. It will be very cold and windy with a few rain patches over the region,” the Observatory said.

Wednesday will see lows of 8 degrees Celsius, and highs of 12 degrees Celsius.

The mercury will slowly rise during the rest of the week, the Observatory said, with Thursday set to see a minimum temperate of 11 degrees Celsius ahead of a rainy weekend. Highs of 20 degrees Celsius are forecast to return next Monday.

The government opened 18 temporary cold shelters across several districts on Monday.

In a Monday press release, the Social Welfare Department urged residents to check on the elderly during the cold spell. “Relatives, friends and neighbours are encouraged to show concern and care for the health of frail elderly persons, particularly those living alone,” it said.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the Centre for Health Protection said in a Monday press release that “cold weather can easily trigger or exacerbate diseases, especially among the elderly and persons suffering from heart disease, respiratory illness or other chronic illnesses.”

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By Martina Igini

Oysters, often overlooked in their unassuming shells, possess remarkable abilities that benefit marine life and humans alike, making them true “ecosystem engineers.” However, decades of overharvesting, habitat destruction, and water pollution have caused a significant decline in global populations, making oysters the world’s most endangered marine habitat, with an estimated 85 per cent of reefs worldwide already wiped out. 

For more than 700 years, oysters have been an important commodity in the Lingnan region – a geographical area that covers Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan in mainland China, and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau – both as food and as building materials. Indeed, oysters and other seashells are an essential source of lime, the predecessor of cement, making it an extremely attractive resource for both construction and agriculture. 

Over the last century, Hong Kong’s coastal areas have seen significant habitat loss due to land reclamation, urbanisation, and over-extraction of lime. These activities have lead to a decline in oyster populations and a degradation of their reef habitats. The lime industry in particular, which thrived during the 19th and 20th centuries as it fed Hong Kong’s development, led to the functional extinction of oyster reefs that once stretched across an estimated 1,000 kilometres of coastline in the Pearl River Delta area.

Recognising the urgency of protecting these invaluable ecosystems, efforts are now underway to restore and conserve oyster reefs in Hong Kong. Scientists, environmental organisations, and local communities are joining forces to raise awareness about the importance of oyster reefs and implement restoration. 

Earth.Org spoke to Marine Thomas, Senior Conservation Project Manager at Hong Kong’s The Nature Conservancy (TNC) who is responsible for overseeing TNC’s marine conservation projects and focused on restoring natural habitats and developing sustainable oyster aquaculture. She delved into the world of oyster reefs, explaining their role as ecosystem engineers, the threats they face in Hong Kong’s waters, and how TNC is working to restore these valuable ecosystems.

Oysters – the guardians of the sea

To understand the importance of oyster reef conservation, we must first look at the benefits these remarkable creatures provide. Indeed, as Thomas explained, while people mostly associate oysters with food, they also fulfil several other functions important especially in the context of climate change.

Oysters are renowned filter feeders that actively purify the surrounding water, with just a single oyster capable of filtering up to 200 litres of water a day. As they draw in water to extract nutrients, they inadvertently filter out pollutants and excess sediments, improving water quality in their habitat.

Research conducted in Hong Kong in 2020 found that a seven-square-metre oyster reef can filter the equivalent of up to one Olympic-size swimming pool in a single day. A single Hong Kong oyster (Crassostrea hongkongensis) can filter up to 30 litres of water per hour at summer temperatures, one of the highest filtration rates among any oyster species.

However, oysters’ significance goes beyond water filtration. Their reefs act as natural nurseries, providing food, shelter, and protection for a diverse array of marine life. They are vital habitats for various fish species, crustaceans, and countless other forms of marine life, including shellfish and coral reefs, fostering biodiversity and supporting the intricate web of life beneath the waves.

Oysters also play a vital role in shoreline stabilisation. The dense and intricate structure of oyster reefs creates a physical buffer that absorbs and dissipates wave energy. By breaking up incoming waves, reefs help minimise erosion and prevent the loss of sediment from coastal areas. This is particularly significant in areas prone to storms and tidal fluctuations.

Oyster reefs also promote sediment accumulation and stabilisation. As oysters filter water, they extract particles and sediments, which then settle on their shells and the reef structure. Over time, this accumulation of sediment contributes to the development of a stable substrate, enhancing the resilience of the shoreline. The presence of oyster reefs promotes the formation of marshes, seagrass beds, and other coastal habitats that rely on the deposition of sediment for their growth and survival.

The Beginnings

In 2017, TNC partnered with the University of Hong Kong (HKU) to promote the conservation of oysters across the territory.

“Conservation is a very long process,” said Thomas. “In order to restore an ecosystem, you first have to understand the ecosystem and the story behind it. You have to map what’s left, identify the different species present in the area, and what has been threatening their existence.” 

From years of intense research on site and drawing from their expertise in restoring oyster reefs at more than 150 sites around the world, TNC and HKU built the knowledge necessary to carry out conservation work and awareness campaigns. Indeed, as Thomas explained, most people in Hong Kong have never seen or heard about these ecosystems before and are not aware of their importance.

“While we are excited by the biological feasibility of restoration, unfortunately the human aspect remains our biggest challenge to bringing these habitats back at scale. Shellfish habitats are still severely underprotected in Hong Kong, with very little public awareness of their ecological value. And little awareness makes these ecosystems vulnerable to development and reclamation.” 

Behind the lack of awareness, there is also government inaction. As Thomas put it, marine conservation in Hong Kong is “severely lacking.” While some development projects in Hong Kong are subject to Environmental Impact Assessments, there are no firm standards for mitigation projects and the environmental impact is only monitored for a maximum of two years.

“You can’t just call anything restoration. Restoration needs standards and long-term monitoring. Without them, we cannot achieve anything in the long-term,” said Thomas. “The government needs to recognise shellfish, work to protect these endangered ecosystems, and provide funds for restoration at scale.”

Conservation Efforts

“We are still at the beginning of our conservation efforts but we are almost at the end of our journey to find the secret sauce,” said Thomas, adding that, while restoration projects across Hong Kong are still in the early phase, years of research have been crucial in understanding how these ecosystems work, what has led to their functional extinction, and what the most efficient ways are to bring them back. Nevertheless, she also recognised that some of Hong Kong’s oyster reefs are so degraded that bringing them back is no longer a possibility. 

In 2021, TNC and HKU launched their first pilot programme at Hong Kong International Airport to mitigate the impact of a recently completed expansion project that included a third runway. To build the 3,800-metre runway, which became operational in July 2022, about 650 hectares of land to the north of the existing airport island had to be acquired through reclamation on top of disused contaminated mud pits. According to a 2015 update on the construction issued by the Legislative Council Panel on Economic Development, some 100 million cubic metres of marine sand were expected to be needed for the reclamation, with obvious consequences for marine ecosystems.

Reclamation in Hong Kong has always been highly controversial, with environmental groups tirelessly advocating for stricter standards. The third runway project had already drawn the attention of environmental advocates for its potential impact on a population of pink dolphins, whose existence in Hong Kong is already highly threatened.

“I’m not going to lie, the airport runway is a challenging environment, it’s severely degraded,” said Thomas, who also recognised that the airport nevertheless remains one of the few government-owned bodies to go “above and beyond” to fund restoration projects – “a good thing,” as she put it, considering that there is no requirement to do so. 

“Considering that the government sets no standards whatsoever to define the success of a mitigation project and only limits monitoring over a maximum of two years, definitely not enough to understand whether a project was successful or not, we were positively surprised when the airport approached TNC and tasked it with retrofitting the area.”

Restoring a Degraded Ecosystem

“How we restore an ecosystem really depends on the challenges of the area,” explained Thomas. 

In Hong Kong, construction, land reclamation, and lime extraction irreversibly affected the foundation of oyster reefs, which need a hard surface – typically other oysters or oyster shells – to reproduce. 

“Because we have taken out the substrate that oysters need to reproduce, the obvious first step is to reintroduce that structure,” the conservationist explained. 

Materials such as limestone and weathered concrete, which is rough and uneven and thus makes the perfect foundation for a reef, are all great materials that can be used to rebuild the surface. But what one might not expect is that even oyster shells are a great option.

Thanks to the Save Our Shells project, an initiative funded by the Airport Authority’s Marine Enhancement Ecology Fund that recycles discarded shellfish shells and repurposes them as substrate for new reefs, TNC has begun recovering lost ecosystems. The NGO is working with restaurants, hotels, and the local aquaculture community to retrieve oyster shells which, after being weathered, can be replanted – typically in the summer months – to create a new substrate for reefs to form and grow. 

The NGO is also working with experienced local oyster farmers from the Lau Fau Shan and Yung Shue O aquaculture communities to make the industry more sustainable. “Farmers are the real custodians of the area and they understand these ecosystems like no one else,” said Thomas.

This collaboration led to two pilot oyster reefs in Hong Kong’s Lau Fau Shan and Tolo Harbour using discarded shells. In the coming years, TNC will conduct ongoing monitoring of the reef’s growth and its impact on biodiversity and water quality. If successful, the data collected during these pilots and the restoration methods implemented can be applied to future, larger restoration projects. 

—

Five years of hard work by TNC and HKU culminated in an exhibition, “The Oyster Odyssey,” which aims to raise awareness about the cultural, historical, and ecological importance of these ecosystems in Hong Kong and shine a light on the NGO’s efforts to work alongside the government to protect and restore them. If you’re in Hong Kong, you can visit The Oyster Odyssey exhibition at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum until January 31, 2024. For more information, visit the exhibition’s website.

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When Astrid Andersson tells people what she does for a living, she is often met with incredulity. “People don’t believe me when I say I’m a cockatoo researcher,” Andersson said on the latest episode of HKFP’s podcast Yum Cha. “But it’s true.”

The postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong has dedicated her scientific career to investigating the white birds with a bright yellow crest and unforgettable squawk that can be seen – and heard – in many of the parks on Hong Kong Island as the sun rises and sets.

Native to East Timor and a handful of Indonesian islands, with wild landscapes of rugged hills interrupted by thorny thickets of green, yellow-crested cockatoos do not really belong in Hong Kong.

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“It’s a really unusual situation,” Andersson told HKFP, sitting on a bench in the middle of Hong Kong Park, an 80,000-square-metre green enclave in the heart of the city. “We’re here in, like, the most urban and developed and cosmopolitan part of Hong Kong really – [it’s] Admiralty, we’ve got major banks, it’s the CBD, basically – and here is the hot spot, the real home base, for cockatoos in Hong Kong. It’s bizarre.”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature puts the remaining global population of Cacatua sulphurea somewhere between 1,200 and 2,000, making the species critically endangered. About 200 of those live in Hong Kong, according to Andersson’s estimates.

How they came to nest in the cotton trees on Hong Kong Island is the stuff of urban folklore. and something that Andersson tried to get to the bottom of during her PhD.

“The most popular theory is that the governor of Hong Kong, during the Japanese invasion in World War Two, he had a bunch of these cockatoos as pets and when the Japanese were advancing, he released them, and… that was the founder population,” Andersson said.

“But I do think that, even if that’s true, this population is most likely supplemented by continual escapees or released individuals, because when we do we do an annual cockatoo count… I always see a few individuals that I notice are of a slightly different subspecies or… a different species altogether, mixed in.”

Regardless of how these birds became one of the city’s invasive species, how yellow-crested cockatoos arrived in Hong Kong is unambiguous: via the pet trade.

“They actually are a very popular cage bird pet,” Andersson said. “Especially in the 1980s and early 1990s, yellow crested cockatoos… were very popular. There were over 70,000 of them exported from Indonesia at that time… and it’s around then that they started showing up in Hong Kong, as well, in large numbers.”

That industry has been central to their decline.

“In Indonesia, unfortunately, the major pressure has been trapping for the pet trade. So, during the 80s and 90s when it was still perfectly legal to do so, they were trapped rates that were just completely unsustainable, and then, actually, that has continued,” Andersson said.

Internationally, trade in wild-caught yellow-crested cockatoos was banned in 2002, but the sale of captive-bred birds remains legal. And while rigorous protections are in place to protect the native population on Indonesia’s Komodo Island, the Asian Species Action Partnership has noted that “trapping for the pet trade continues with declines noted in almost all other populations.”

Andersson recalled an incident in 2015, when a man was arrested after being found by Indonesian authorities with more than 20 birds stuffed into plastic bottles. “They were illegally trapped,” she said, adding that while “that’s the major threat they face” the birds were also contending with human-led habitat loss and the impacts of the climate crisis.

Another issue, was identifying captive-bred birds from ones that had been illegally captured from the wild. There were methods in place, Andersson said, but during surveys of Hong Kong’s Yuen Po Street Bird Market conducted during her PhD, she found that they did not appear to be routinely applied.

“You’re supposed to see that they have a band on their leg with an ID number,” she said. “But when I was doing the survey, I noticed a few birds didn’t have a band, or they had a band that… you could remove, or it didn’t have a number on. There didn’t seem to be a really consistent standard for these identification and traceability means,” she continued.

“The issue arises when you can’t really tell, say, [whether] a cockatoo has been smuggled from Indonesia in a plastic bottle, and then put in the bird market.”

After completing her PhD in 2021, Andersson turned her focus on the genetic makeup of Hong Kong’s cockatoos, “trying to figure out: are they inbred, are they hybrids or are they… pure subspecies of yellow-crested cockatoos? Are they from a certain island in Indonesia or another one… that sort of thing.”

Her findings could be important not only to help understand the city’s population, but perhaps for the conservation of yellow-crested cockatoos in their native habitats.

“If there was genetic rescue needed in Indonesia, and it was assessed to be safe, and all of the proper procedures that you have to do when you reintroduce birds were followed… it could turn out that Hong Kong has actually provided a reservoir, a genetic reservoir for this critically endangered species,” she said.

Gesturing to the skyscrapers that surround Hong Kong Park, Andersson added: “I don’t know that the bankers working in these towers here in Hong Kong know that when they look out the window while they’re on their conference call and they see these birds flying past, it’s actually a really rare species.”

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Seventy-eight hectares – or 0.78 square kilometres – of protected wetland in Hong Kong’s New Territories has been destroyed since the government announced plans for a huge development in the region more than two years ago, green groups say.

According to an analysis of satellite imagery and field studies conducted by The Conservancy Association and Greenpeace, 78.7 hectares of wetlands had been destroyed between July 2021 and December 2023.

The two groups at a press conference on Thursday said a further 587 hectares of wetland was at risk under current development plans.

The Northern Metropolis plan unveiled in July 2021 is intended to provide more than 900,000 homes when completed and generate around 650,000 jobs by integrating development projects in the northern New Territories near the border with mainland China.

The development plan has drawn criticism over its potential impact on wetland conservation and local villagers.

Of particular concern are the wetlands at Hoo Hok Wai, a 320-hectare conservation area where the area of damaged wetlands had doubled to 36.8 hectares over the course of the study, said Kristy Chow, a campaign officer at the Conservancy Association.

Additionally, a total of 27.2 hectares of the Sam Po Shue Wetlands, 12.2 hectares of the Nam Sang Wai wetlands, and 2.5 hectares of the Hong Kong Wetland Park Expansion Area were destroyed. In total, that accounts for just under five per cent of the area of wetland conservation parks surveyed, the association said.

The wetlands were mainly destroyed by large-scale flattening and excavation work, raising or widening embankments, and long-term placement of excavators and containers.

The association also spotted seven dump trucks entering wetland conservation zones in San Tin and said it suspected they were involved in unauthorised dumping.

Comprehensive policy lacking

Chan Hall-sion of Greenpeace said that while the government had issued notices and listed various areas as blackspots, it still lacked comprehensive policies for conservation and brownfield sites and could not rely on enforcement actions alone.

Chow also called attention to the government’s decision last November to decrease the size of the Sam Po Shue reserve from 520 hectares, as laid out in the 2021 Northern Metropolis Development Strategy, to 338 hectares, representing a 35 percent drop.

Chow described the government’s approach to development as “development first, conservation later,” citing the 13-year timeline for the development of the Sam Po Shue Wetland Conservation Park, in comparison with the allotted seven years for the San Tin Technopole – a massive Innovation and Technology (I&T) hub in the northern part of Hong Kong.

The two green groups urged the government to speed up the development of the Sam Po Shue conservation park such that its completion coincides with that of the San Tin Technopole, and to redraw the San Tin tech hub’s boundaries to avoid ecologically sensitive areas.

It urged authorities to step up efforts to protect wetland and allocate additional resources and manpower to carry out inspections and prosecutions where necessary, while enforcing strict standards and penalties.

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Elderly care homes in Hong Kong may have to spend hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of dollars a year to comply with the government’s new waste charging scheme starting in April, an industry representative has said.

The municipal waste disposal charge, which will come into force on April 1, may drastically increase the cost of running around 1,100 local elderly care homes which must dispose of clinical waste such as diapers, Elderly Services Association of Hong Kong honorary chairwoman Grace Li said on RTHK on Thursday.

The scheme approved by the legislature in August 2021 requires general waste to be disposed of in designated bags of various sizes, while a designated label costing HK$11 each should be affixed to oversized waste such as large furniture before disposal.

The capacity of the designated bags ranges from three litres to 100 litres, costing between HK$0.3 and HK$11 each. The bags or labels could be bought at authorised outlets, including supermarkets, convenience stores, pharmacies and online shopping platforms.

Li said on Thursday that the new levy would not help reduce waste at care homes for the elderly, where most of the refuse was non-recyclable clinical waste. Some residents would need to change diapers six to eight times every day, and these must be wrapped properly with an additional plastic bag to prevent leakage, the industry representative said.

“For large-scale care homes… this means an additional cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars or even up to millions a year. This operational cost is quite excessive,” Li said, adding the waste disposal requirements would increase the workload of staff.

Li, who is also a member of the Elderly Commission which advises the government, said the sector had expressed its concerns to the previous administration. She called on the government to exempt care homes from using the designated labels when tossing away mattresses and other oversized waste.

Publicity work

In an interview with Beijing-backed newspaper Wen Wei Po published on Thursday, Director of Environmental Protection Samuel Chui said the Environmental Protection Department (EPD) had organised more than 50 talks to explain the new waste scheme to the property management and cleaning sectors.

Chui said promotional videos and social media posts would be used to help the public understand the charge: “Whether we understand something often depends on our willingness to seek clarity. If we choose not to make the effort, then it will remain unclear.”

Director of Information Services Fletch Chan also defended the government’s publicity work on Thursday, saying the EPD had put in a lot of effort but promotional work “could always be done more.”

The pro-Beijing DAB party and the Home Affairs Department organised a talk on Wednesday evening for representatives of owners’ corporations, owners’ committees and management offices at 13 housing estates in Tai Po.

Non-compliance

According to the DAB, attendees raised concerns that the scheme may burden low-income families and the elderly. Some also asked about ways to handle conflicts over the usage of the designated disposal bags.

Under Secretary for Environment and Ecology Diane Wong said frontline cleaners only needed to remind residents if they did not dispose their waste using the designated bag. If they refused to cooperate, the cleaning staff did not have to worry about legal liabilities.

She said the government would set up a hotline for people to report cases of non-compliance. The authorities would try to give verbal warnings, but enforcement action would be taken in cases of repeated violations, Wong said.

Disassembling items

On Wednesday, Assistant Director (Municipal Solid Waste Charging) Theresa Wu of the EPD said on RTHK that if an object to be disposed of did not fit into the designated bags, then a label costing HK$11 should be attached to the item.

In response to questions about handling long objects such as a broomstick or a floor fan, Wu said people could “saw them into two pieces” and put them in designated bags.

“I believe Hong Kong people are very clever. They will find the most cost-effective method. Paying HK$11 for [disposing] of a mop handle does seem a bit expensive,” she said in Cantonese.

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