Braintrust on biodiversity maps future for Hong Kong’s ecology

Hong Kong’s experts come together to produce a series of recommendations to future-proof the city’s rich ecology.

Hong Kong’s large community of experts from academia and the wider society concerned about biodiversity and sustainability has come together to produce a series of recommendations to future-proof the city’s rich ecology. Croucher News recently caught up with some of the experts involved.

Around 130 members of the Hong Kong Biodiversity Expert Group, representing 67 organisations, including universities, NGOs, foundations, and the corporate sector, spent more than six months reviewing the progress that Hong Kong has made in implementing the Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (BSAP) 2016–2025 and identifying priorities for building on that plan in the next decade.

The Hong Kong Biodiversity Expert Group identified five priority areas that should be addressed in the 2025-2035 Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan:

• Initiate large-scale restoration of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems to reverse biodiversity loss, enhance ecosystem function and connectivity, and improve climate resilience.
• Significantly scale up protection of coastal ecosystems through the designation of marine protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures to achieve the global “30 x 30” target (30 per cent protected by 2030).
• Increase safeguards for the most endangered species of animals and plants to reduce species extinction risk and facilitate recovery of at-risk populations.
• Mainstream biodiversity in business decision-making to increase private-sector participation and investment in biodiversity action.
• Scale up efforts to reduce Hong Kong’s impact on biodiversity caused by the wildlife trade and unsustainable consumption.

They have done so on the eve of a government consultation for updating the first BSAP. The Environment and Ecology Bureau (EEB) and Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) are due to publish a draft action plan for the years 2025 to 2035 for public consultation early this year.

The BSAP is being reviewed in response to the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework under the Convention on Biodiversity and adopted by 196 countries globally.

In co-hosting the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in 2021, China played a key role in negotiating the framework. This framework not only set targets to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2030, which is currently threatening as many as one million species with extinction, but also initiated plans to reverse that loss.

Professor Christine Loh, the Chief Development Strategist at the Institute for the Environment, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and a former Under Secretary for the Environment, chaired the expert group, which included many members who had contributed their knowledge as members of working groups for the first BSAP. This time, the consultation draft for the revised action plan is being prepared without external involvement.

The expert group, founded and funded by ADM Capital Foundation and The Nature Conservancy, has made 75 recommendations based on the global framework, linked to practical solutions for their implementation in the local context, in advance of the public consultation.

Unlike the first BSAP, this includes an emphasis on the restoration as well as the conservation of biodiversity. It also identifies a key role for the business and finance sectors, in addition to relevant government departments, NGOs, universities, and researchers.

The recommendations include restoring ecosystems in at least 30 per cent of both marine and terrestrial areas, in line with the global target.

“If we don’t strengthen biodiversity and make it more resilient, we have less chance of retaining what we have,” Loh said. “These are essential for the city’s well-being and prosperity,” she added. “Protecting, conserving, and restoring the city’s natural assets is a key component of building climate resilience, harnessing nature-based solutions, and preserving valuable land and marine resources.”

Because climate change was undermining current conservation efforts and plans for major urban developments were continuing, the next BSAP would need to be more ambitious in scope and depth, she said. It would also require a more collaborative approach across government and the wider society and substantial new sources and mechanisms for its financing.

Collaboration was needed because the knowledge to tackle the complex challenges was so diverse, and much of it was new or still to be discovered. “It is a total revolution, flowing through policy, financing, infrastructure, and management systems,” she said.

The expert group has identified the need for extensive research, ranging from quantifying ecosystem services provided by natural habitats and the value of carbon they can store to systematically monitoring the status of species.

Hong Kong had the opportunity to be more proactive in defending its biodiversity by following the lead and commitment being taken by the national government and using the growing interest in the business sector, as well as knowledge being generated in academia, foundations, and NGOs, Loh said.

Many in the EEB and AFCD understood the needs, she added. But questions remained as to whether there was enough support overall and whether decisions to defend biodiversity and adopt more natural approaches to development could be implemented before construction began rather than as piecemeal mitigations afterwards.

Global negotiations and commitments to address climate change and biodiversity had raised awareness of the importance of acting locally, Loh said. Green finance disclosures introduced in the finance sector in recent years had provided an added spur to encourage institutions to adopt biodiversity policies.

Dr Andy Cornish of Cornerstone Strategies, a marine ecologist by training and co-ordinator for the group, said that its work had flushed out important gaps in existing policy and implementation. Most of the group’s recommendations related to these gaps, as well as a context that had changed significantly over the last decade.

“The most obvious is climate change, and partly because of that, the emphasis needs to change from conservation to restoration. That is the pivot point globally. Trying to conserve what is left will not be enough, as we have already lost so much.

“This is massively important for building resilience to climate change. Healthy ecosystems that have more genetic variation in the population will be more naturally resistant to it,” said Cornish.

The group’s report places particular emphasis on stepping up marine protection, from the current 5 per cent of waters designated as Marine Protected Areas to 30 per cent, where Hong Kong is regarded to have fallen short of international targets.

Meanwhile, restoration was also needed for terrestrial land, even though more than 40 per cent was already included in country parks and other protected areas. Scrubby hillsides, with earth exposed from frequent hill fires, were not as rich in biodiversity as they were before they were deforested decades ago. “We need big restoration efforts, and soon. It is much easier to restore a forest now than when climate change really hits,” Cornish said.

Country parks also needed management plans that included conservation targets and planning with biodiversity-related objectives and monitoring.

This reflected another gap identified by the group: the lack of systematic tracking of Hong Kong’s biodiversity.

“We have no measure of the status of biodiversity in Hong Kong,” Cornish told us. More data has been gathered since 2016 and is being added to the Biodiversity Information Hub launched under the BSAP in 2022. But Cornish said that this was not sufficient to measure the health of populations and their habitats over time; it was necessary to observe trends, identify ecosystems and species at risk, and make trajectories for the future.

The list of threatened species also needed to be extended to reflect not only their global status but also local status and should be updated regularly and linked to necessary legislation. “There should be several hundred species on such a list,” he said.

“Currently, zero marine fish are included because they are not classified as animals and therefore not covered by the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance,” he said. He gave the example of the whale shark, which is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List and protected in China but not when it swims into Hong Kong waters.

Loh pointed to the huge progress in building knowledge and understanding to protect biodiversity and address climate change within academia and civil society, which could be shared and utilised more widely. But she added, “We can't do much with the biodiversity braintrust without Hong Kong wanting to take it forward.”

As Croucher Foundation prepares a second series of articles on Hong Kong’s ecology, there is no doubting the capacity of that “braintrust” and its readiness to be involved in partnerships to refine and implement the Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan for the decade ahead.

The full report, Hong Kong Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2025-2035, Initial Recommendations to the HKSAR Government, prepared by the Hong Kong Biodiversity Expert Group, can be found here.