Friends of the Earth (HK)

SCMP
JOHN BOWDEN, EDWIN LAU and CHRISTIAN MASSET
2005-03-23

See no evil, hear no evil

On March 3, it was announced that the Housing, Planning and Lands Bureau had rejected a joint statement by several environmental groups on the sustainable development of Lantau.

This raises grave concerns over the promised process of public engagement, involvement and transparency. The Lantau Taskforce, headed by Financial Secretary Henry Tang Ying-yen, invited the public to comment on the concept plan for the island, with a February 28 deadline for submissions. Then, it was claimed, subject to public views received, the concept plan will be reviewed and fine-tuned.

With this in mind, it is unacceptable for the bureau to reject a statement written in response to this invitation. For the government to subjectively accept or reject public submissions makes a mockery of the whole consultation process. If the intention is to accept all opinions in favour of the proposal and reject those that come up with alternative ideas or questions, then the process has little value.

It is feared that through its March 3 statement, the government may have revealed an intention to toughen its stance on open and constructive consultation in the future, and to openly reject public opinion. That would be a shame, and possibly contrary to the stated ambition of acting Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen.

On Saturday, Mr Tsang said that Hong Kong's stability rests on four pillars, one of which was the free flow of information. He said the challenge was to forge a consensus and accommodate differing views. The bureau's statement, however, does not try to take into account the objections to the Lantau plan. Instead, it says that the government's proposals are right and, thus, by implication, the objections are wrong. There was no evidence given to support the rejection.

The bureau said: The government has adopted a balanced and sustainable planning approach, integrating both development and conservation needs. But this contradicts the view of the conservation groups, which feel that the emphasis is very much biased towards development.

It has been suggested that up to 250 responses may have been submitted - far more than is common for such a consultation process. We want the details of all responses to be made public so that the true balance of opinion can be assessed by the community.

One of the main objections that we raised was about the format of the consultation process itself and the failure of the taskforce to present a complete plan for public comment. Large projects that are known to be under consideration were omitted, while others were not fully explained.

The consultation process ran for only three months. Without a sustained debate on the proposals, it is impossible for the general public to grasp the true implications and the potential long-term damage that could be done to the island and the rest of Hong Kong. One limited consultation process cannot be considered adequate for such a major change to our environment. Such a huge infrastructural development project must be managed in a transparent way.

Once again, an opportunity for true transparency of information and open engagement with the community could be lost unless something is done right away. We look forward to constructive dialogue with the government at the earliest opportunity, together with residents' groups and representatives of other interested parties to achieve these aims. In this way, it is hoped that we can use this unique opportunity to make Lantau an example of government-community co-operation with a genuine balance of environmental sustainability and economic growth for Hong Kong as a whole.

John Bowden is chairman of Save Our Shorelines, Edwin Lau Che-feng is assistant director of Friends of the Earth (HK), and Christian Masset is chairman of Clear the Air.