'Govt Officials Not Qualified For Tree Assessment'

A retired professor from Chinese University, Chiu Siu-wai, has called into question the quality of tree assessment being carried out by government experts, saying their judgement is too poor.

"The government officials, they say they have the qualification, but they don't have the experience," she said.

Chiu was speaking after a group of protesters held a demonstration on Bonham Road where the Lands Department chopped down two banyan trees on Sunday.

The protesters accused the government of being “unscientific” and “imprecise” when it comes to deciding whether a tree has to be knocked down for safety reasons.

Chiu, who was a professor at Chinese University's Life Science Department, said even she can spot a problem tree in a few minutes. But the government officials can't do that even after six months, she said.

She said the government had concluded that the two trees were not safe simply based on a visual inspection, when it should really have used special instruments to produce precise data about the trees' condition.