Cattle as urban planner

Abstract

Hong Kong has a wide variety of habitats which contribute to the diversity of local fauna especially birds and insects. However, wild mammals are declining rapidly because of the degradation or loss of habitats caused by urbanization. For hundreds of years, bovid such as cattle and water buffalo have been an enduring presence amongst the diverse landscape of Hong Kong. Prior to the 1970’s, cattle were important to Hong Kong’s agricultural industry as a valuable labor for farming. Large population of bovid were labored with the farmers in the rice paddies and the crop fields yet that have been transformed into small nomadic herds following the agriculture decline during the 1970s and 1980s. In the present-day, semi-rural areas of Hong Kong such as Lantau are under pressure for promoting community development with the advantage of its attractive landscape and ecology that has always been popular for city people, are now a tendency to building residential.

Cattle and water buffaloes’ presence as a tool for weeding and plowing in farmlands in Hong Kong have been the product of human intervention. Yet, the cattle are subject to human neglect, likewise evicted from their home and are coming into certain conflictual relations with human again in different contexts.

On an ideology level, a clash between feral cattle and humans signifies a clash between nature and civilization, aka. A clash of the unrestricted and the restricted. As cattle move into the city, it is not so much the physical intrusion as they move on the roads that causes the conflict with the residents, but the differences in their living ideology that puts them at fault against each other. Logic dictates that it would be better for the city to reject nature’s approach, however, as residents of the city, a naturally living environment would surely be welcomed. Hong Kong, a city of such significance to its global ties with finance and business, the clash of the two ideological giants would be worth exploring as the two struggles for its place in the concrete jungle. I believe that striking a balance between the feral cattle and the village’s residents is possible. The thesis will explore ways in negotiating a design of manageable co-existence between the two. One potential approach should come from a planning direction in working closely with the networks of existing natural.