Land-Use and Marine Spatial Planning in Hong Kong and Southern China

Abstract

How to secure Hong Kong’s future as “Asia’s world city” has been hotly debated by politicians, policy makers, government planners and entrepreneurs, with an increasing awareness that the SAR’s growth and sustainability depend on developing comprehensive plans for the conservation and management of its marine environment. In 1995, after years of agitation by marine scientists and international and local conservation groups, The Marine Parks Ordinance was passed into law, providing for the designation, protection and management of ecologically important marine environments. Today there are four marine parks and one marine reserve protecting 1.46% of the total sea surface of surrounding waters. However laudable such legislation may be, Hong Kong’s 6.8 million people inhabiting a highly urbanized area of 1 650 sq km, share a fragile ecosystem strained by industrial and urban development, pollution, land fills and reclamations all of which impact negatively on marine habitats. Furthermore after the inception of China’s open door policy in 1978-79, and the rapid economic, industrial and urban development in south China, human pressures on marine resources and the environment are unprecedented. Hong Kong, situated at the gateway to south China’s maritime frontier, has had a long history of human interaction with the sea. What problems in marine ecology can be identified within these long-term patterns? How has rapid economic and industrial development in Hong Kong and south China led to increasing marine degradation? With the retrocession of Hong Kong to China’s sovereignty in 1997, what policies and planning initiatives could be developed to solve these problems of a common ecosystem?