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    Following is a question by the Hon Cheung Hok-ming and an oral reply by the Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works, Dr Sarah Liao, in the Legislative Council meeting today (March 2) :

Question:

    In November last year, the Government announced the implementation of a new nature conservation policy to enhance the conservation of ecologically important sites, particularly those under private ownership.  Under the new policy, a pilot scheme will be implemented on 12 priority sites for enhanced conservation to assess the effectiveness of the two new conservation measures, viz. management agreements with landowners and public-private partnership ("PPP").  It has been reported that as the rights of landowners to use and develop the land under their ownership will be frozen as a result of the implementation of the new policy, some landowners have proposed to solve the problem by resumption, exchange or lease of the land concerned.  In this connection, will the Government inform this Council :

(a)  of the percentages of the area of private land in the individual and the total areas of the priority sites; the percentage of the area of the land owned by individuals, with fragmented ownership and measuring less than 1 000 square feet in the area of each of the individual priority sites;

(b)  of the estimated expenses incurred in resuming the private land in the priority sites; based on the maximum domestic plot ratios applicable to new towns and rural areas respectively under the Hong Kong Planning Standards and Guidelines, the estimated area of land that has to be provided for making land exchange arrangements with the landowners concerned and the estimated expenses on the annual rental for leasing the land from them; and

(c)  how it can ensure the successful implementation of the pilot scheme for the above two measures; of the criteria for assessing if the scheme is successful or not; whether the government departments and participants of the pilot scheme concerned will be held accountable for failure of the scheme; if not, how the lack of accountability will affect the effectiveness of the measures, particularly PPP which allows participants to carry out development projects on the priority sites?

Reply:

Madam President,

(a)  As land is scarce in Hong Kong, there are always competing demands for land in meeting economic and social needs.  Developments and their associated human activities unavoidably create adverse impacts on the natural environment and, in some cases, conflict with the nature conservation objectives.  We need to strike a balance between development and conservation needs.  From time to time, there have been debates on whether a particular site deserves to be conserved, and also criticisms about the limitations of the old nature conservation policy and measures in conserving ecologically important sites that fall under private ownership.  The new nature conservation policy announced in November last year is a direct response to the debates and criticisms.

    The 12 priority sites identified for enhanced conservation vary in sizes.  The Ramsar site is the largest, which covers an area of about 1 600 hectares.  Cheung Sheung is the smallest site, which covers about 16 hectares.  The total area of the 12 sites is about 3 300 hectares of which approximately 970 hectares (or 29%) is privately owned.  Detailed information on the areas of government and private land within each site is listed at Annex.  We have also uploaded the same information onto the website of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department since November last year for reference by the public.

    Regarding the ownership of individual lots within the 12 priority sites, we need to conduct extensive land search to obtain such information.  Since conducting land search of this scale is a very complicated process, and will require much time and efforts , we are unable to provide such detailed information.  Nevertheless, when proposing a management agreement or public-private partnership (PPP) pilot project, the project proponent is required to provide information on the ownership of the site concerned and specify the arrangements to be made with the land owner(s) concerned.

(b)  Under the new nature conservation policy, we have proposed two new conservation measures, namely management agreements and PPP, to enhance conservation of the 12 priority sites.

    A landowner's rights are prescribed in the land lease.  Since private land within ecologically important sites are usually held under agricultural leases, the landowners concerned do not have any development rights to erect buildings or structures on their land.  As they will not be deprived of any of their rights, the Government is not required to pay compensation to the landowners concerned.  I would like to emphasise once again that the participation of landowners in these two new conservation measures is completely voluntary.  As such, the question of compensation does not arise.

    The application period for the pilot scheme on management agreements and PPP is from December 1, 2004 to May 31 this year.  At this stage, it is not possible for us to predict what development projects and land arrangements (such as land exchange or leasing) will be proposed or to estimate the area of land to be exchanged and the leasing expenses involved.

(c)  Given the complexities and uncertainty involved in implementing the two new conservation measures (especially PPP), we will proceed with a few pilot projects first.  We will formulate appropriate provisions according to the nature of individual agreements and PPP projects to ensure their enforceability.  The Government has also drawn up a set of criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of the two measures.

    First, we will assess the effectiveness of the proposed projects in enhancing the conservation of the sites concerned, and better achieving the nature conservation objectives.  We will consider whether the projects may have any adverse effect on the environment.  We will also evaluate the sustainability of the projects, taking into account factors such as the participation of landowners and local communities, as well as the reliability and enforceability of the agreements.  In addition, we will also give due consideration to the project proponent's commitment to the long-term conservation of the site concerned, and the resource implications for the Government.

    We will review the effectiveness of the implementation of management agreements and PPP in two to three years' time.  We will take into account the review findings and the corresponding resource implications before deciding the way forward.

Ends/Wednesday, March 2, 2005

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