Written by by By Jaryd Friedman, CNN
A curious Hong Kong harborside structure sits on a blustery day. Curious yet rare indeed — and sure to fascinate anyone who’s ventured into its inner sanctum. It’s an inverted teak water tower, replete with a barge-like structure on its side. The entire structure, constructed in 1969, sits at the mouth of Hong Kong’s crocodile-infested New Territories Wildlife Refuge.
The structure is one of several carved teak pools, set alongside winding passages and towering, pebble-trimmed hills, that mark the boundaries of the wildlife refuge. Created for the 1970 World Wildlife Fund conference on environmental conservation in Hong Kong, the pools form a key part of the environment and draw thousands of visitors every year, until they fall victim to high tides and strong winds and have to be closed.
“I love nature, so I’ve seen that they’ve managed to keep their location in town because it’s still available for people to visit, as opposed to having to go on to the border, or going to the black rock area,” says Stefan Novotny, 35, a Hong Kong cabbie.
Wildlife impact
Hong Kong’s wildlife reserves stretch as far as the Chinese mainland in some cases, making them an important part of the city’s environmental landscape.
“We hope that in the future, the generation after us will be able to visit or safeguard nature,” says Wong Chun-hong, 60, the interim head of the reserve who’s worked there for 20 years. He adds that the wildlife management department is “now reviewing the (reserve) structure” for the next few years.
She’s hopeful, he explains, that the facility will be well positioned to deter marine species — such as sea turtles, sea lions and ospreys — from making a home in the area. “The sharks will keep away from the water because it’s not considered safe (from storms) for them.”
Remote islands
In his own paper, “Ecological Effects of Losing the Teak Oaks,” published last year, conservationist David Kenyon, founder of a national biosphere reserve in Wales, said that the use of teak “provides remarkable geological stability in its natural environment.”
That stability may help explain why teak is increasingly used to enclose islands where the elements are harmful.
The 14-sq-mile Macau Island is a coral jungle-turned-island where two-thirds of the water flows in from the sea and grows angry and salty — meaning that the wildlife there is in danger of dying out, unless species on the island’s northern side are relocated to the tranquil area on the southern island.
According to Ian Cutler, a visiting lecturer at Macau University, the recent discovery of nearly 700,000 cubic meters of teak trees on the island could help preserve the indigenous bird life on the island.
Since the islands are heavily sponged, he says, the teak is absorbed by the soil and can provide a canopy in place of another teak plant that’s already likely to be killed by moisture.
“In the future, when all of this is wiped out, it may take up 10-30 years to bring this teak back to its natural ecosystem. What we are trying to do is preserve this natural habitat as a proof of concept,” he says.
Monitoring change
T.J. Woo, an associate professor at Hong Kong Baptist University’s School of Geography and Local Environment, who specializes in sea and marine ecology, is also working on the island to monitor the movement of sea life.
“To ensure that animals can adapt, we need to see which of the current species become predominant,” he says. “We will use ecotours and camping to observe how animals evolve over the next few years.”
Woo says there’s a need to balance conservation with practical solutions for people.
“It’s not just working out ways to prevent them (from getting in) — they also need to work out ways to provide a good livelihood for all of us.”