01 view
Written by: Commentary Editing Room
2020-10-27 17:30
Last update date: 2020-10-27 17:30
During the three-day holiday in the past weekend, the Hino Park camp was closed due to the epidemic, but the public still had no interest in outing.
Tap Mun, a famous camping hot spot in Hong Kong, has become a new mecca for Hong Kong people. However, the increase in tourists also means that the burden on the countryside has increased. Campers feed cattle without authorization, and many people litter there.
Tourists not only damage the environment, but also cows swallow food packaging and plastic bags. The gathering of citizens at the gate of the epidemic also makes people question the effectiveness of epidemic prevention measures.
Different food packaging and plastic bags may be swallowed by cattle by mistake.
(Photo by Liang Pengwei)
Who is the responsibility of the departments to evade each other?
In response to the epidemic, the Fisheries and Conservation Department has announced the closure of 163 barbecue sites and 41 camping sites in country parks under its jurisdiction since July 15. It said that barbecue and camping activities in country parks will not be allowed during the closure period.
However, since the camping site of the citizens in Tap Mun is unleased or unallocated government land, the Lands Department's responsibilities only include providing non-recurring maintenance of natural plants and will not restrict citizens from camping there.
As a result, the Tap Gate is not affected by the closure measures of the Fisheries and Conservation Department, and the Lands Department does not interfere with the citizens in camping there. As a result, the Tap Gate has become a gray area between government departments and management rights and responsibilities are blurred.
Moreover, the government has opened the gates as usual, and the policy is inconsistent, which is likely to weaken the effectiveness of the policy in fighting the epidemic.
After the camps under the country parks were closed, more citizens who wanted to go out camping concentrated on Tap Gate.
From the perspective of epidemic prevention, whether the land is open or not should not depend on which government department is following up the land, but the government should make a unified decision on whether the official land can be opened for camping during the epidemic, so as to avoid the concentration of camping crowds and the risk of spreading the epidemic.
Tamen not only has a policy vacuum on epidemic prevention, but also has no clear definition of who is responsible for environmental maintenance.
The Fisheries and Conservation Department stated that Tap Mun is not within the scope of a country park and therefore is not under its supervision; the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department stated that it is only responsible for collecting garbage on the island; although the Lands Department is responsible for the maintenance of vegetation, it does not belong to its authority to establish a rest period. .
As a result, after tourists destroy the natural environment of Tap Mun, no government department is willing to take responsibility for the restoration.
The responsibility for land management in Tap Mun is vague. The government first needs to solve the problem of the gray area in Tap Mun, coordinate the work of various departments, and deal with many issues such as epidemic prevention, grassland and cattle health in a unified manner.
(Profile picture)
Cows swallowed plastic by mistake, inter-departmental cooperation?
The responsibility for land management in Tap Mun is vague. The government first needs to solve the gray area problem in Tap Mun, coordinate the work of various departments, and deal with epidemic prevention, grassland and cattle health in a unified manner. For example, if the government considers camping to be a risk of spreading epidemics in the future, Tap Mun Should be closed in accordance with the standards of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department.
As for the management of stray cattle itself is one of the work of the Agriculture and Fisheries Department, but the maintenance of natural plants on government land is also the responsibility of the Lands Department.
As tourist activities reduce the vegetation area in Tap Mun, which affects the herbivore and health of the cattle, the two departments must work together to seize the time to repair the Tap Mun grass as soon as possible, and send a veterinarian to check the body of the cattle. It is not suitable to continue to live in Tap Mun. The Agriculture and Fisheries Department should also study the relocation of cattle to make stray cattle a livable environment.
01 view
Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department Lands Department FEHD 01 Viewpoint
