From: <a href="mailto:kevsin@pacific.net.hk">kevsin@pacific.net.hk</a>
Subject: please copy to Fire Services, EPD, PPRB GFS and the four
district officers listed
Cc: <a href="mailto:patrick_cp_ho@hab.gov.hk">patrick ho HomeAffairs</a>,
<a href="mailto:shelley_lee@hab.gov.hk">shelley lee-hab.gov.hk</a>,
<a href="mailto:hh_wong@had.gov.hk">hh_wong@had.gov.hk</a>,
<a href="mailto:peter_pf_chan@had.gov.hk">peter_pf_chan@had.gov.hk</a>

THIS HAS GONE TO POLICE, HOME AFFAIRS, O,BUDSMAN ETC ETC ETC ETC
EPD - FOR ALL THE GOOD THAT WILL DO..... AFCD ETC ETC ETC

Several months ago I sent messages to various rurual District Officers and to police, fire, government flying services, Home Affairs and other agencies, including EPD. I am sending this again (below) and also plan to send it to various environmental and concerned conservation groups as well as to the Ombudsman’s Office.
I asked at that time, after disastrous hillfires had destroyed millions of trees if the District Officers who are directly responsible for the areas of hillside most likely to be burnt again, planned to take action.
If so, what would they do?
Would they contact rural committees and village representatives and warn them to tell grave sweepers not to burn offerings in a dangerous way?
Would they ask police to lay on special patrols to inspect known grave sites and to prevent throughout and irresponsible people from lighting fires?
What I would now like before the Ching Ming Festival in April if to receive an assurance that the District Officers concerned have done their job and have taken action. I would like to write a letter in praise of them for the action they have taken to prevent hillside fires over Ching Ming. Can they please gove me specific details of what they have done and what preventive measures are in place to stop fires on April 5.
Kevin Sinclair

SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Kevin Sinclair, Columnist
November 11 2004

PETER CHAN DISTRICT OFFICER SAI KUNG
OWIN FUNG DISTRICT OFFICER ISLANDS
CHARLES CHAN DISTRICT OFFICER TAI PO
WONG HON-HO DISTRICT OFFICER NORTH

Good morning
I would like answers to the following questions. There were six million square meters of bushland destroyed on Chung Yeung Festival day on October 22. Much of this devastation was in the areas for which you are responsible.
1. Did you warn villagers in your district about the laws governing setting hill fires?
2. If so, what did you tell them and when?
3. If not, why not?
4. As District Officers, you know precisely where the graves are where worshippers go each festival and where they light fires. Did you station any of your staff at these places during the Chung Yeung festival? If not, why not.
5. With the certain knowledge that the very same irresponsible and negligent people will return to the same graves to light offerings and cause further destruction of the environment, will you promise the public that next Ching Ming festival you will warn the relatives of the dead in advance and station officers at gravesites to prevent people from breaking the law.
6. How many people did your office report to police for breaking the laws governing starting fires?
7. If you have any further information, amplification or explanation to add that will help me write a balanced and fair account, please let me have it.

Kevin Sinclair

CC: Patrick Ho, Fire Services, EPD, PPRB, GFS

This has been sent to DR PATRICK HO, PERMANENT SECRETARY SHELLEY LEE AND THE DIRECTOR OF HOME AFFAIRS MS PAMELA TAN.

Greetings fellow conservationists ... the annual big burn approaches; it's Ching Ming on April 5. The following letter has been sent to the three top officials in Home Affairs which is in charge of the District Offices. I wrote to rural District Officers after the last graves sweeping festival saw hundreds of acres of hillsides obliterated. No answer from these fellows, of course; they're all too busy going to tea with rural committee leaders to think of doing their jobs.
I have also written similarly to police, fire, AFCD and Government Air Services.
Can I ask you please to help me. I want to do a blistering (pun intended) column for next Wednesday. Can members of environmental groups please send me comments on the situation - and what you would like to see done. Stanley Chan and James Wong of We Love Mau Ping intend to patrol gravesite areas and take pictures of people lighting dangerous fires. This is a great idea. I intend to go around with my mobile phone and make a damn nuisance of myself to Sai Kung Police by reporting every illegal fire I see.
What will you be doing?
Ideas and comments - please email me with them.
And let's all pray for a cloudburst.
Regards
Kevin


Attention DR PATRICK HO Secretary for Home Affairs

Dear Patrick,
Greetings,
I read with great interest your story in today’s SCMPost headlined the green, green grass of home. I agree entirely; we are most fortunate in being able to enjoy a wonderful natural environment.
But we are destroying it.
Every grave sweeping festival people foolishly, thoughtlessly and irresponsibly light incense and burn offerings which inevitably turn our hillsides into smouldering wastelands. During Ching Ming 2003, 84 fires destroyed 2,283,769 square metres of hillsides. About 96 per cent of the charred land is outside country parks, making it the responsibility of local district offices.
After further fires at Chung Yeung festival, I wrote to various District Offices pointing out the danger of fires in rural areas because of the persistent but illegal practice of worshippings lighting incense while praying at graves. I asked what they intended to do to limit damage to the environment during the coming Ching Ming festival.
There was no response.
Patrick, I beg you, as Secretary for Home Affairs, to issue strict directives to District Officers, particularly those in Islands, North, Sai Kung, Tai Po, Sha Tin and Tsun Wan to collaborate with police, fire services, Government Flying Service, AFCD and other agencies (perhaps the CAS could be involved) to patrol known grave sites and take preventive action. If people light fires which could spread, they should be warned and the fires put out. If people cause hillfires, they should be arrested and charged.
In past years, thousands of hectares of forests and hillsides being destroyed, not one single person has been charged. Why not? Why are people allowed to continually, year after year, permitted to break the law with impunity and to destroy the beautiful environment which is so precious to so many Hongkongers.
Can I please request that you let me know what action has been taken on this issue? District Officers have refused to answer questions explaining their continuing laxness.
With best wishes
Kevin Sinclair

Maybe all these letters have had some effect, but just a tiny little one.For the first time ever this year (?), they'll put up signs in about 5 or 6 places

I talked to Lammadonna two days ago, asking her if they'll do something else, for example fire watches for Ching Ming. She just smiled and didn't reply anything concrete.

more trees later this year - according to Lammadonna, who was informed this time - in addtion to the 144,000 they just planted. They'll be planted by LCSD (Leisure & Cultural Services Dept.) along the tourist trail from Hung Shing Yeh to Sok Kwu Wan, covering up some bare, eroded slopes along the way.

Anyone care to test them with a cigarette lighter?

Every spring at Ching Ming and at Chung Yeung in autumn, precious hillside woodlands go up in flames. Everyone knows careless grave-sweepers will twice yearly spark blazes that sweep across country parks, leaving behind a charred and hideous wasteland.
But year after year the government seems unprepared for a disaster that everyone knows is going to happen. Over the recent Chung Yeung festival firemen counted 183 fires; 573 hectares were devastated.


There was one exception to this gloomy scenario. As Sai Kung smouldered, Tai Mo Shan burned and fires swept perilously close to housing at Tuen Mun, the skies over Lamma Island were clear of smoke. There was not a single fire on the island, although scores of family parties lit incense and burned tomb-side offerings.

What was the cause of this miracle?

Well, surprise! It had nothing to do with the government. Several months ago, the Conservancy Association decided basic preventative action should be taken to dampen the grave-sweeping spirit. Chief executive Lister Cheung Lai-ping led a team of 20 volunteers to Lamma a week before the festival. They visited hamlets and put up posters saying: "We can stop hill fires." They pleaded with villagers to take care and to spread this warning to visiting clansmen coming to pay their respects.

The day of the festival, 30 volunteer conservationists were posted on paths leading to the highland graves. They chatted to people heading to the hills, gave them bottles of water, offered to go with them to help cut long grass surrounding the graves.

Such simple, inexpensive tactics worked. "It's obvious," says Ms Cheung. "What's the point of planting trees and preaching preservation if every year careless people start fires that destroy the countryside? We decided to do something positive."

Their action puts the government to shame. The government claims to pay "great importance" to preserving hillsides and preventing fires during the grave-sweeping festivals. There's a nine-member "interdepartmental taskforce on hill fires". This year, they sought aid from the Heung Yee Kuk and district councils, ran publicity campaigns, put up posters and gave out leaflets.

Hundreds of auxiliary volunteers were on duty, as were firemen, police, park wardens and helicopter pilots. Officials handed out leaflets to grave-sweepers. I reckon some of those came in handy to light fires at overgrown tombs.

There were "shouts" from helicopters and warnings over radio. Home Affairs ran publicity drives. All was in vain.

To me, the answer seems simple. Put uniformed patrols in the hills, spot people breaking the law. Drop patrols by helicopters and arrest them. Drag them to court, impose huge fines, make sure these anti-social louts appear on television and in the press.

Name them, shame them, fine them and charge them for repairing the awful damage caused by their irresponsible stupidity. Do it once and the problem will end forever.

Government agencies are obviously ineffectual. This is self-evident; look at blackened hillsides that will take decades to be reafforested. Efforts were made this year. These were not enough.

If the government can't do the job, then let's empower competent people like the Conservancy Association and other green groups to do it. They were successful on Lamma this year. Can they do it all over Hong Kong? Let them try, I say. They are obviously more effective than government departments.

Like Lamma, the entire countryside could be protected if government followed the example of this small, self-motivated group. Government has the full history of where fires take place during festivals. Every single grave is registered. The locations are known. They should station wardens in uniforms with binoculars and walkie-talkies within obvious sight on every path leading to every grave. This would save a huge amount of money. This year, Government Flying Services helicopters whirled overhead from morning until well after dark dumping water on blazing hillsides. Teams of firemen and Civil Aid Services volunteers tramped laboriously up the steep slopes to fight the blazes. Nobody seems to analyse the cost of this twice-yearly expenditure. It runs into many millions of dollars.

There is also the expense of replanting tens of thousands of destroyed trees. And let's not forget the emotional and aesthetic costs of blackened hillsides and the loss of pleasure to the public.

The hillsides belong to the people. It is our treasures that are violated twice yearly by thoughtless and foolish people. Don't let them get away with it. If the authorities can't do the job, which is obvious, put power in the hands of someone who can succeed.

Dear Lamma-Gung,

Congratulations for our effort in preventing hill fires in Lamma Island! The "No Hillfire" Campaign in Chung Yeung Festival was a great success!
Without your help, we could not have achieved our goal of preventing hillfire under such dry conditions. Cheers!

Enclosed please find the news for your references. Would you mind sending me some pictures that you took when they are weeding or any other pics on that day.

Thank you very much!