Hong Kong’s next phase of development should make room for both butterflies and buildings, conservationist Dr Yau Wing-kwong has said, arguing that biodiversity can be incorporated into parks, schools and neighbourhoods without holding back the city’s growth.
Yau, founder of Environmental Association Limited, has spent nearly three decades promoting community-based conservation. He is a finalist for the Spirit of Community Award in this year’s Spirit of Hong Kong Awards, co-organised by Sino Group and the South China Morning Post.
His best-known project, the Fung Yuen Butterfly Reserve in Tai Po, began as an effort to protect butterfly habitats from collectors and other disturbances. It soon became an early example of a different approach to managing ecologically valuable private land.
Hong Kong announced its New Nature Conservation Policy in 2004, and Fung Yuen was among the first sites selected for a pilot management agreement scheme the following year. The arrangement allowed a non-profit organisation to work with private landowners, with government funding, to manage land for conservation.