Albert Chan, NT West LegCo rep., came here a couple of weeks ago to check into local development issues (proposed community centre, etc). We showed him the YSW landfill and he took an interest.



Probably mostly the same bureaucrats as before. But they won't be able to dismiss a LegCo member as easily as they did us. They react to pressure, and up till now that has come from the real estate and construction lobby and their DAB friends

Has anyone interviewed the landowner who is authorizing all this dumping, by the way? For the sake of balance, it might be interesting to hear his responses to the many concerns that have been expressed. A seminal Lammazine front page?

_________________
I did not have sex with that woman!

The SCMP reporter tried to interview him, even went to his house, but he wouldn't talk to her.

Albert Chan,[/url] NT West LegCo rep., came here a couple of weeks ago to check into local development issues (proposed community centre, etc). We showed him the YSW landfill and he took an interest.

...and where was Mr.Chan's visit advertised, am I missing out on the great and good's visits by not paying attention to community affairs? And who are the "...we..." in this message - our much exalted local representatives or other unknown parties? And again, what "...proposed community centre, etc..." ? What is going on in Lamma, is there some sort of strange "community spirit" settling over the sleepy village? Next thing you know we will have a residents association being formed

Tourista,
Albert Chan was invited by a group of concerned residents who wrote to him individually, after a questionnaire about municipal facilities was distributed in Main street. Such questionnaire had his contact details very clearly stated, so anybody could write to him.

There is a thread on this forum about Municipal Facilities where his visit was also announced. I assume that many of those who met Albert Chan on that occasion found out about it after reading our posts.

His second visit is mentioned in the thread you are reading now, as were the visits made by a SCMP journalist and a photographer. Judging by the number of people who turned up, these visits were certainly not a secret.

If you have anything to contribute on the issue of the landfill in Yung Shue Long, you are welcome to add your voice here, as we do.

I don't understand your polemic tone.

It's certainly good to know that residents show interest in the place where they live, and object to unauthorized dumping on agricultural land and unnecessary schemes such as the concreting of a village stream in 2006, a proposed ring road in YSL, and the reclamation of the harbour a few years earlier.

http://www.lamma.com.hk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6518

Correspondence with Town Planning Board below for those interested. I haven't contacted Jessica Ho as yet... but anyone else is welcome to as well.
======================================================

6 April 2009
Re: Illegal dumping in Yung Shue Long Valley, Lamma Island
Dear Sirs,
I wish to lodge a complaint, that some person is dumping building waste on land that is both zoned 'Agricultural Use' and is also an important drainage system and a precious ecological resource to the community. The dumping site is on the west side of Yung Shue Long Valley, Lamma Island.
The EPD has apparently already received many complaints (one reference number is: # 6477-09).
Please can something be done to stop this activity as soon as possible before irreparable damage is done to the land.
Thank you for your kind attention.
Yours sincerely
xxxx

=================================

Response
=================================

Town Planning Board
to jycho@pland.gov.hk, me

Apr 22 2009


Dear Sir/Madam,

I refer to your e-mail dated 6.4.2009.

Please be informed that your e-mail has been referred to the Central Enforcement and Prosecution Section of the Planning Department (PlanD) for follow up action and reply. For further enquiries, you may contact Ms Jessica Ho of PlanD at 2158 6136.

Regards,
Town Planning Board Secretariat


================================================

While I'm here, what happened to the email list that was supposed to keep all concerned updated on what was going on?

There is an email list, but it gets more and more unwieldy as more join.

Since the pond has now been completely filed in, and the bureaucrats have all shrugged and walked away, nothing much is happening.
But everything important will be reported here, thus my post on Albert Chan's visit.

The emphasis is now on lobbying the legislature to change the regulations and how they're enforced.

This is the full text of the TV ad:

Illegal dumping of construction waste on slopes is like a ticking time bomb and poses a landslide hazard. If there is a landslide lives and property are in danger. Illegal dumping of construction waste is a criminal offence. If you come across such an illegal act, please report it.

Illegal dumping of construction waste on slopes causes landslides.
Report hotline 1823
CEDD

What is CEDD, I wondered? Yet another department. The Civil Engineering and Development Department.

I duly called the hotline and was contacted yesterday by a representative who said he was in Yung Shue Long and asked me to show him the site. I went down and met two gentlemen and took them to the site where the dumpsters were observed in flagrante. They said they knew all about this, and that action would be taken "in due course." That filled me with great hope, so I went merrily on my way.

Maybe if we can get one more department on board to practice passing the buck we can enrol a team in next year's Hong Kong Sevens.

_________________
I did not have sex with that woman!

By now all the relevant government departments have received complaints from a large number of residents.
After 5 weeks they haven't managed to stop the owner from dumping.

Their inability to act is outrageous, but apparently they are "just following the rules".
The Legco subcommittee on combating fly-tipping is trying to close loopholes in the current legislation....but they face a lot of opposition from the Heung Yee Kuk (the clansmen)

The Planning Department has no authority over Lamma, and vast areas of the New Territories, where kuk rules, feudal style. That's why fish ponds in Yung Long have been turned into landfills, and agricultural land is used by car wreckers, or for storing containers.

What is illegal in Hong Kong is permitted on Lamma....and we can thank the Rural District Council for it.
Lamma is a fiefdom.

A photo, submitted to me yesterday by a local Chinese man, showing the fly-tippers in action.
Plus my own photo, also taken yesterday.

The destruction of the Lily Pond is now complete and it has been filled up all the way to the path to Tai Peng.

Now this waste dump will slowly start to widen and extend up the valley, surrounding the farmer's land, no idea yet how far it'll extend.<HR>
Somebody suggested a more positive approach and try to "appeal to the local landowner /councilor to give the community something back.
At present there is a JCB digger on site and plenty of unspoilt land to the side of land-fill. This land is close to the small stream and looks ideal to create a new pond. The land is very close to the natural water-table level and it would probably only take the JCB 30 mins to cut a new pond out?

Worthy of discussion, I think.

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

Just an update on the current state of the consultation process that is taking place at Legco (actually they have been consulting for years!)

The chairman of the Legco Sub-committee on Combating Fly-tipping urged government departments to respond to the complaints and recommendations made by "Living Lamma" on May,7, when we presented a paper to that Legco sub-committee meeting. (So far we have only seen the usual "pass the buck" activity, and little else)

If you are interested in reading it, you can find it here.

http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr08-09/english ... 090507.htm

Wow, this is an amazingly comprehensive, informative, well-illustrated and even passionate document, well worth reading in its entirety!

So sad and upsetting not to get any better outcome so far, not even a fine...

Please keep us up-to-date on any further developments and everything that Living Lamma is undertaking in the future.

_________________
Click here for Lamma-zine stories and recent Lamma Spotlights of the Week:
Photo, Video, Person, Wildlife, Bird, Artwork.

Can anyone make a slideshow about how a lovely lily pond becoming the 'waste land' ?!!
So that people new to lamma will always get to know the story quickly.

Just a small point…having read the paper submitted by “Living Lamma” I note that they include the following “…destroyed a breeding ground for the protected Romer’s tree frog…” Just as a matter of interest, just when was the pond recognized by the competent authorities as a breeding ground for the frog? I understood that, although the frog’s call had purportedly been heard in the valley, there was no evidence of breeding in the pond or am I mistaken?

A HKU biologist living on Lamma has studied them for years. Her qualifications are listed in the paper.

She did not describe the pond itself as a breeding site, and neither does the LL paper. Please read it carefully before you dismiss it.
It is obvious that a large area of their habitat has been destroyed and more is at risk.

And here is one of the purported frogs:
<img src="http://www.lamma.com.hk/nick/romers_tree_frog_200_nek_597.jpg" width="400" height="302">

You are correct. They probably never bred in the lily pond because it was filled with non-native fish. I don't think anyone has ever said that they bred in the lily pond. They will only breed in a permanent pond if it doesn't have fish, which can be major predators of this species. I have heard Romer's tree frogs calling throughout YSL valley for three breeding seasons (Feb.March - August/Sept.) now and have documented the locations of calling males. As a matter of fact, they used to call from the formerly vegetated area next to the path that was carved out last year to make the new concrete drainage channel. They don't call there anymore as there is no vegetation and no standing water.

Male frogs call during the breeding period around breeding sites (small pools of water that usually dry up every year in vegetated areas). A female selects a male and they breed at that site. These frogs are about 2 cm in size, so clearly they don't pair up and then trek 1 km to another site to breed. They are known to breed in the area where the males call. Calling males have been heard in the formerly vegetated area behind the lily pond (toward YSL old village path), but not in the lily pond, every year for the past three years. Now the site has been filled with concrete rubble and soil and I have not heard a Romer's tree frog calling there since the area was filled. Certainly they won't; there is no habitat anymore.

They still call higher up in the valley and I have had many discussions with AFCD about this. What has happened is very unfortunate. What would be even more unfortunate is if they continued to fill further up the valley and other habitats were destroyed. This frog has the highest level of protection that any animal can receive in Hong Kong. The law is there for a reason, and AFCD has a mandate to enforce it.

Those interested in the academic side of the legal tangle of land tenure in the New Territories (including Lamma) may be interested int he following seminar at HKU next Tuesday:

Seminar Notice

"Customary Law and the New Territories"
by
Professor Hugh Baker
Professor Emeritus, SOAS, University of London

Abstract:
Traditional Chinese law was a mix of codified and customary systems.
These two strands may have originated from Legalism and
Confucianism respectively, and it is tempting to equate them with
harshness and leniency, but whatever the precise history of
development may have been, there remains a certain ambivalence in
categorisation. It may have been that the extraordinarily small size of
the Chinese administrative Civil Service meant that there was simply
not enough capacity to operate a fully comprehensive system of legal
control, and certainly the remit of the law did not run strongly in
areas remote from major administrative centres (this was no doubt
true of other parts of the world too). The Legal Code did not cover
everything, and what it did not cover was left to local custom and
perhaps to the ingenuity and ad hoc arbitrariness of officials on the
ground. Recent work has begun to show that contrary custom may
quite commonly have prevailed even where the law was explicit.

When Britain took power in Hong Kong there was willingness to
accommodate Chinese law in so far as it affected the Chinese of the
Colony. But colonial courts were frequently in the dark about what
Chinese law was. As time went on many Chinese opted for using
English law where it suited them, for example in the writing of wills
(there was no concept of testacy or intestacy in the Chinese system)
and the drawing up of binding business contracts, but in other areas
such as arranged marriage, child brides, concubinage, and
posthumous adoption Chinese people in Hong Kong were able to retain
mid-19th century values, even when other parts of China were making
changes.

The New Territories were granted more exceptions to the principles of
English law than were Hong Kong and Kowloon, especially in the
matter of land-holding by corporate bodies of kin. These exceptions
remain even under the current Basic Law, and in 2009 suits are still
being conducted, under what is thought to be Qing dynasty law. The
relevance of this system to the SAR's fast-developing society is
assessed.


Date/Time: 26/05/2009 16:30-17:30
Venue: The Reading Room, Centre of Asian Studies, Tang Chi Ngong
Building, Room G-4 (Ground Floor)
Language: English


Registration Instruction:
Registration is not required.

Charge
This event is free of charge.

For further information, please
visit:http://www.hku.hk/cas/seminars/26May2009.html

Should you have any enquiries, please feel free to contact Ms. Louise
Mak by email at lypmak@HKUCC.hku.hk or by phone at 2859 2460 or
by fax at 2559 3185.

_________________
I did not have sex with that woman!

Bill, thanks for posting this announcement. It sounds like it will be an informative talk.

Have you seen the latest work being carried out at the pond?

Now the rain has started they've realised the drainage channel that cuts across the footpath, carrying the flow from the side opposite the pond, is discharging upstream of the filled-in pond and causing flooding. To counter this someone has smashed up the path downstream of the fill.

Strangely, there are some barriers a few meters further up the path with WSD signs on them, but the barrier beside the smashed section of footpath says DSD. I'm not sure if the works, which are only necessary because of the dumping, are being carried out by either WSD (surely nothing to do with them) or DSD or in fact by the dumper who maybe just happens to have "found" some barriers with appropriate signs.

If anyone is in the area today it might be worth a look.

_________________
Some of my finest work:
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