'Public Want Govt To Protect Nam Sang Wai Site'

An alliance of green groups said on Wednesday that an overwhelming majority of the public want the government to protect the Nam Sang Wai bird watching site in Yuen Long which has been hit by a series of fires recently.

The groups said eight out of 10 people polled in their survey of 1,000 people supported the conservation of the popular site.

Police have said that they suspect arson in at least one instance but the government has rejected a call to take control of the site.

Greenpeace, Green Power, the Conservancy Association, the Bird Watching Society, Friends of the Earth (HK) and Designing Hong Kong conducted the survey after hectares of land in the area were scorched in the fires.

Roy Ng of the Conservancy Association said they have visited the site several times and saw that a natural recovery process is underway in some reed beds in the area. But he warned that any future fire would seriously damage this process.

Ng said the government's nature conservation policy for private land that has a high ecological value is not working. He told RTHK's Timmy Sung that current measures like management agreements and public-private ownership are not effective.

Paul Zimmerman from Designing Hong Kong was also critical of the government, saying it is being "lazy and cheap".

"They just want to declare the area for conservation but not resolve the land issue. Not spend the money, not do the complicated things," he said. "Therefore we are ending up with frustrated landowners ... and people setting fires."