The Importance Of Country Parks In Hong Kong

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24 country parks and 11 special areas occupy 40% in Hong Kong. In fact, Hong Kong is well-known for its hiking trail. According to "lonely planet', ‘Hong Kong Trail' is ranked the 10th place in best trails around the world. (Lonely Planet, 2013) However, in mid-2017, the government assigned the Housing Society to investigate whether it is viable to convert the country parks into residential use which causes a vigorous debate around the city. While some believe that exploiting 2.5% of country parks can satisfy the housing need for the public in the coming 10 years, others who are against it, thinking that development will violate the use of country parks. This essay will discuss the importance of conserving the country parks by analyzing reasons …show more content…

Country parks serve the objective of retaining area to preserve the sound ecosystem and conserve the water catchment area for reservoirs. For the former objective, country parks play an indispensable role to provide educational value and ecotourism resource. It grants each other room for getting exposed to natural habitats and further educates the public to conserve endangered species. In order to conserve the ecosystem, country parks shoulder the responsibility to act as a green belt due to restricting urban sprawl. Forceful large-scale urban development, not only violates the principle of country parks of prohibiting development but also causes the inevitable and irreversible destruction when clearing the forestry. According to a report, (Lee, Li, Shi, Cheung and Thornton 2006), the metal will be released to the soil in the course of urbanization. To be specific, "ecosystem is the fragile system". (Goldman, 1989)Once it is destroyed, we can seldom rehabilitate the ecosystem utterly; For the latter objective, Former Observatory director, Lam Chiu-Ying said that opening up countryside will give rise to the shortage of local water supply (as cited in Cheung, 2013). Country parks are fundamental in preventing the pollution of drinking water in reservoirs. Developing country parks inevitably may fill the reservoir with cement which affects the water quality and destroys animals' habitats. In …show more content…

The proximity of the city to the countryside contributes to being regarded as the most livable by the Economist in 2012. This is a stark contrast to the foreign country usually take hours to the countryside, whereas Hong Kong mostly takes less than one hour. One of the judges, Filippo Lovato claimed that "Hong Kong is a compact city which is able to achieve a close network of green area."(As cited in Yoo, 2012) As most country parks serve as a recreational function where are equipped with a ‘well-designed trial. These render a place for the public to relax and relieve stress. Hence, public's quality of life can be enhanced in the spiritual dimension. Moreover, no development be permitted within the area of country parks. Owing to low building density in the countryside, air quality will be relatively higher than highly-urbanized area. In this regard, country parks are of paramount importance to improve our quality of

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