How I became a “Friend” of the Earth
2020-07-17
| Karen Barretto, Naturalist, Bird Watcher & Plant Hunter
Both my husband and me are nature lovers and concerned about protecting the countryside. We are very interested in plants and my husband Ruy had been a member of the Hong Kong Wild Orchid Group started by his mother Gloria Barretto, who became a pioneer of plant conservation. He knew the countryside intimately. I shared his interest, although I was a relative newcomer - we explored what were then very remote areas of Hong Kong. We learned first-hand how special Hong Kong is and how urgent it is to safeguard it.
I was trained and qualified as a nurse and midwife and came to Hong Kong from Australia with Save the Children Fund and worked in the Vietnamese Refugee camps until I finished full time work in April 1986. I started different kinds of volunteering: Hong Kong Council of Women, SPCA, and I started as a volunteer in the One Earth shop in the same year.
Both my husband and me joined Friends of the Earth (HK) at a meeting organized by its founder Linda Siddall held at the Hilton Hotel in 1983 to protest against the construction of the Daya Bay nuclear power station in Southern China close to Hong Kong.
At Friends of the Earth (HK) I joined the fundraising committee, organised a health food fair in June 1988 and managed the membership database for very many years. I was invited by Linda Siddall to join the Board of Governors in March 1991, not because of any particular environmental skill but because, as she said, I spoke a great deal of common sense at the Executive Committee meetings.
I have now been on the Board for 29 years. In that time, I have been on many FoE(HK) committees and have represented FoE(HK) on government advisory committees.
As time went by, I discontinued my other voluntary works and pursued a degree by distance learning. I continued my involvement with Friends of the Earth (HK) as I decided that while those other issues were important, the environment mattered more than anything to me. I would do what I could to protect my part of the planet, to the best of my ability. This is a value that I share with my husband, who also spends a great deal of his time, as a volunteer, but bringing his legal skills, his interests in botany and ecology and his vast local knowledge of the countryside to the task.
We worked closely with experts to gather the evidence for the Judicial Review which Friends of the Earth (HK) took against the first attempt to develop biodiversity rich Sha Lo Tung into a housing and golf resort which encroached on Hong Kong’s Country Park land. We succeeded to stop the encroachment. A great deal was learned by all concerned from this successful campaign. During one plant survey there I found an attractive and very rare shrub which had not been seen for many decades.
My husband later became a director of Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden (KFBG). By this time, I had my experience of hands-on working for a charity, my studies mostly about psychology, my veteran status in Friends of the Earth (HK), and my leisure activities which revolved around hiking in the New Territories, plant-hunting and birding.
Through KFBG and the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society and their contacts in China we went on several trips to China, where we participated in bird surveys, providing data and reports to the local forestry personnel, that enabled them to upgrade their status as nature reserves. These trips gave us a wider context and exposure to South China and it became apparent how rapidly that area was developing and changing, at the expense of the environment and how very rich Hong Kong’s biodiversity is by comparison and how vital is Hong Kong as a green heart for the South China region.
We also became more aware of our regional connectivity and with the East Asian Australasian flyway and this was brought home to us in different ways. We went a short distance east where we actually saw Daya Bay. We went inland to the rugged and forested hills which divide up the provinces around us. We went west following the coastline of which we are a part. We saw species which were rare or were just being rediscovered after decades. We saw shorebirds which had been leg flagged in Hong Kong and others from Australia making the trip up and down the flyway that Hong Kong is part of.
But to our horror we also saw concrete where precious wetlands had been, dreadful air pollution and black sluggish rivers. We have met well motivated people and seen the efforts China is making as well as the issues it needs to address. We have been privileged to meet experts in their fields through our special interest groups and through our association with KFBG. This has nurtured and fed our passion for the natural world.
My personal contribution to the green mission is and has always been my commitment of loyalty, time, my common sense and my perspective as someone who has a close connection to the natural world. My main sense of fulfilment is that I have played my part and did not sit on the side-lines and grumble.
To keep up with environmental news and developing trends I have compiled what has become an enormous collection of English newspaper cuttings. I am dismayed when I am filing these to see how the same issues are dealt with, or not dealt with, year after year. It usually has taken decades for things to improve. This filing process creates days of despondency. However, I do see through them that nowadays there are so many more concerned people, all bringing their various interests and skills to the issues.
It has become so apparent that the environmental issues confronting us are so numerous, so complex, that we can never deal with anything in a simplistic way but need to bring in all those involved to achieve solutions that address the concerns of all.
The thing that motivates me within Friends of the Earth (HK) is that there are always keen and energetic new faces coming along with their varied concerns and expertise, the staff, the people on the board, some of the activities such as the Water Forum. Each one enriches the organisation and I know that we will continue to be relevant while such people continue to appear and feel that they have something to give and gain from their connection with us.
For myself, my heart and interests still remain with
biodiversity and I will be moving more into that direction.
I want to spend more time in nature and there is still much to see and learn, even on my own doorstep. I am now learning about and protecting pollinators, bees, butterflies, moths and bats together with their ecosystems. Using the internet and social media, the future depends greatly on NGOs working to conserve and regenerate the world.
Photo source: Karen Barretto