Though Hong Kong’s marine environment contains about 1,000 different tropical and temperate fishes, and more than twice as many coral species as the Caribbean, most of us have trouble identifying marine life unless it’s on our plate. “It’s a shame,“ says diving instructor Alex Warren. “Specialists from overseas often come to study our unique underwater habitats, hoping to replicate them at home, yet few people here know anything about them.”

Even more of a shame, however, is that current government negligence means such riches may soon be lost forever. This despite a recent study that indicates a thriving local marine environment could be harnessed to generate up to $2.6 billion in revenue through sustainable exploitation, including tourism and recreation. Here we consider what we risk losing, why we risk losing it, and how certain passionate individuals are determined to make sure we don’t.

What‘s under there?

Goatfish, parrotfish, clownfish, ponyfish, moonfish, tigerfish, rabbitfish, batfish, triggerfish, grunts, sweetlips, stargazers. These are just a handful of the fish species currently living under Hong Kong’s 1,650 km of sea surface area.

Thirty percent of fish species depend on coral for their life cycle, which provides shelter and food for coral-eating species such as butterflyfish. Hong Kong possesses some of the world’s northernmost corals, which can tolerate unusually broad temperature ranges. Over 80 different species exist in Hong Kong waters, with coral communities mainly residing in the east and southeast. Their ancient origins stretch back as far as 2,000 years. The most prolific communities can be found in sheltered waters, notably in Hong Kong’s designated Marine Parks – Hoi Ha Wan, Yan Chau Tong and Tung Ping Chau.

Aside from a vast range of “reef fish,” coral also supports sponges, jellyfish, sea anemones, snails and sea slugs, clams, oysters, shrimp, starfish, sea urchins and many other creatures.

What’s happening?

According to WWF Hong Kong, fish stocks in local waters peaked in the 1970s and have been in decline ever since, with the catch rate currently at a quarter of what it used to be. The reasons behind the decline are clear: sewage dumping, reclamation and unsustainable levels of fishing.

Dumping of sewage occurs primarily in western estuarine waters, affecting less coral-based marine life. One particular area where such discharge flagrantly occurs is just west of Stonecutters Island, in the channel below Tsing Ma Bridge.The most recent study by the Environmental Protection Department (2004) says water quality there is the worst in the territory.

Meanwhile, reclamation and building continually destroys shoreline coral communities and mudflats that serve as nursing grounds for other organisms. One imminent example, according to Paul Hodgson, MD, director of marine consultancy Oceanway Corp, is the container terminal to be built off Tsing Yi, predicted to wipe out the local seahorse population there.

Yet the biggest factor by far behind the decline in fish and other underwater organisms in Hong Kong is over-fishing. The most concentrated form of fishing in local waters is trawling, which involves dragging massive weighted nets through the water. While the fish targeted are edible, commercially viable species, trawling nets are indiscriminate in what they end up catching. Dragged along the seabed, they also destroy communities such as soft corals and sea fans.

To make things worse, the cheapness of trawling nets means they are easily discarded and left forgotten in the water, where they continue to catch fish on their own. Hodgson and his team claim to have collected staggering reams of “ghost nets,” which, if laid out end to end, would stretch from Victoria Harbour to Manila Bay in the Philippines.

They also found a shocking example of the dangers of trawling at the supposedly protected Marine Park in Hoi Ha Wan: 30% of the starfish were lost to trawling in a single week.

The resulting erosion of Hong Kong’s marine environment has the WWF warning that “ecological collapse is a real possibility.”

Why is it happening?

The underlying reason for the destruction of Hong Kong’s diverse marine environment is government neglect. “The government is obsessed with building ‘icons’ rather than preserving and enhancing the assets we have,” says Hodgson. “Yet it’s these assets – and not Disneyland – that make Hong Kong unique.”

It’s all too easy for the government to keep up this policy of negligence when underwater deterioration is less openly visible than other environmental problems such as air pollution. While the government’s response to the latter can be described as foot-dragging at best, the current scenario faces a prevailing mentality of “out of sight, out of mind.”

Recent government-sponsored studies of Sai Kung provide a classic example of this mentality at work. For everything they looked at, there was no comprehensive study of marine-based activity. “How can you preserve something they know nothing about?” asks Hodgson. Moreover, what little recommendations were made by the Study on Southeast New Territories went totally ignored by the government.

More generally around Hong Kong, the government has neglected to foster public appreciation of marine areas by promoting relevant activities such as small boat recreational fishing, marathon swimming, diving and other watersports competitions. Also missing is a lack of infrastructure in such areas providing for small restaurants, guesthouses and passenger-carrying boats.

Far more reprehensible, however, is the government’s failure to implement a sustainable fishing policy. In-shore trawling is currently allowed, and no fishing-licensing scheme exists specifically for commercial fishing. The latter is also allowed to occur in some Marine Parks, with no catch limits. “Fishing with gill-nets and traps is allowed, which I think is just nuts,” says Andy Cornish of the WWF; “at the moment, Marine parks are effectively just private fishing grounds.”

Admittedly, Hong Kong’s current lack of a sustainable fishing policy comes down to the power wielded by its fishermen’s lobby. Lobby members demand the right to fish wherever they want and by whatever means they want. This despite the fact that depleting stocks mean tougher competition and an eventual dead end for everyone in the long run, a prospect emphasized over and again by local scientists and affirmed in a study this year by scientists from the University of British Columbia (UBC) commissioned by WWF Hong Kong. Hodgson contends that a large part of the reason the lobby fails to represent the true interests of local fisherman is that the representatives are merely middlemen and not fisherman themselves. “Put simply,” he says, “fishermen don’t walk around in suits and ties.”

Lots of Marine Money

If the environment was improved, marine tourism could be developed – a natural move considering our abundant marine resources. And this could mean big money: the study conducted by UBC estimates that between $1.3 billion and $2.6 billion could be generated through tourism and benefits for fisheries from revitalized stocks.

What is obvious is that an economy supported by eco-tourism with a revitalized fish stock would be more sustainable than our current one, which is solely dependant on a quickly declining fishing industry.

So How to Do It

WWF’s “Save Our Seas” campaign proposes a set of concrete objectives that the government needs to meet in order to successfully prevent the disappearance of Hong Kong’s marine environment. They include an introduction of a fishing licensing scheme for all commercial fishing vessels, the establishment of marine parks, banning trawling (except for designated shrimp trawling areas) and expanding the “no-take” areas where marine life can’t be removed to 30 percent of Hong Kong waters.

The Agriculture, Conservation and Fisheries Department says it still requires funding from the upper levels of government for them push ahead with the next phase of their existing Marine Park program. Considerably less ambitious than the WWF’s proposals, this involves expanding Marine Park areas to cover 10% of Hong Kong waters.