Periscope
Save the shades: experts
by Ha Chi-yung and Zhang Can
Five months after the savage pruning of more than 200 trees at Leung King Estate in Tuen Mun, green advocates are still pushing for more regulations on tree felling and attention to proper trimming.
"The existing law is absolutely inadequate. The trees are almost unprotected," said Lister Cheung Lai-ping, chief executive of the Conservancy Association, a leading green group in Hong Kong.
Trees at Leung King Estate were found cut to their bare
trunks in last October. Some residents said the trees caused
safety concern and pest problems as well as blocking light. The
owners' corporation and the management company of the estate
have been accused by the Lands Department of breaching the
land lease conditions, as they did not apply with the authorities
for approval to clip the trees.
Under the leases of public housing estates and private lands, there are tree protection clauses, which require an application for any tree felling or transplanting.
A spokesman for the Lands Department said the department was considering imposing a penalty on the owners' committee and the management company of Leung King Estate.
The pruning has sparked an outcry from the
Conservancy Association, which calls for tightening
existing legislation to protect trees and to stop people
from felling trees without proper authorisation. "The
fine of the existing law definitely has no deterrent
effect," Ms Cheung said. Now some developers
may just prune the trees and pay the fine to settle
their cases, as they have the money, she said.
Between 2001 and 2006, the Lands Department imposed some HK$48.4 million fines on offenders for damaging or felling trees.
Offenders are also usually ordered to replant double or triple of the number of trees felled as compensation.
But the Conservancy Association questions its
effectiveness. Ms Cheung said the ecological value
of two newly planted trees could never be
comparable to that of a 50-year-old tree felled. "It
is not the quantity (of trees replanted) but the
ecological function of the trees that counts," she
said. Replanting is only accepted when trees
replanted have the size of canopies similar to that
of those felled, she said.
And there is no specific government department responsible for checking whether offenders comply with the compensatory replanting or on the conditions of the replanted trees.
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A tree has been cut to its bare trunk
at Leung King Estate.