Reasons to love Hong Kong

“It seems to me as though Hong Kong in a way presents a graphic microcosm of the choices we face for the future: on the one hand rampant capitalism, with its inequitable concentrations of wealth, polluted air and concomitant ecological destruction, and on the other the rapidly-awakening consciousness within businesses, schoolchildren and all sorts of people of the need for a radically different lifestyle, to create a truly sustainable future for humans and all other life on the planet”.

(Alan Watson Featherstone, ‘Trees for Life’)

Look what an amazing place we live in !!!! Did you know that only 40% of Hong Kong is built up city…….this map shows you just that!
Another 40 % of land is designated protected area by the Hong Kong Government and includes:
23 Country Parks, 4 Special Areas, 4 Marine Parks, 1 Marine Reserve, 3 Restricted Areas, and 1 Ramsar Site covering a total area of about 44,514 hectares.

Not all that long ago Hong Kong was made of dense jungle and was home to gibbons, tigers and even small elephants!! 

Human activity, development and farming, recent wars and a large influx of population has led to the habitat destruction of these old forests.The last sighting of a Tiger was by the Bishop of Hong Kong in Shatin in November 1947. The only cat still living in Hong Kong is a very much smaller Leopard Cat. 

However, despite being a major city, Hong Kong supports an incredibly rich variety of animals and plants and GUESS WHAT………….!

Hong Kong has: 

• —more native tree species than the U.S. and Europe 
• —more coral species than the Caribbean Sea 
• —and more species in total than U.K. !!!!!!!

Hong Kong as more species of:

• —plants, 
• —mammals, 
• —reptiles, 
• —amphibians, 
• —freshwater fishes 
• —insects

Than the whole of the united kingdom which is 250 times larger!

1,104 km2

244,820 km2

Isn't that amazing !!!! 

This is what I know: green environmental attitudes are not built into our hard drives……we need to learn how to load those in! Having intimate and exciting encounters with nature needs to come first to help build a sense of connection and a desire to protect our world.