Bond Shum

is the founder and conservation director of Outdoor Wildlife Learning Hong Kong. He studied Environmental Life Science (環境生命科學) at the university, and further pursued his study in Environmental Management. After graduation Bond Shum has been working in the field of environmental education and did forestry research in Hong Kong Tai Po Au. As a certified arborist, he has also worked in environmental protection projects and has raised
concerns about the need for tree preservation in urban cities.

1/ Why do you decide to work in the field of environmental conservation?

I grew up in village the New Territories and had more chances to be close to nature. I like to play in nature, play in the fields with my grandpa. All these are nice childhood memories.


When I grew up and went back to the village, I realized rural areas in Hong Kong has been urbanized a lot. While my hobby is observing wildlife, I would like to contribution myself in protecting our nature.


Therefore, I have decided to work in environmental protection and education.

2/ What is your view towards biodiversity in Hong Kong?

While Hong Kong is a very small city, its biodiversity is very rich.


For some animals, we even more species than some European countries. We have 560 species of birds in Hong Kong, which count as 1/3 of the entire China.


In Hong Kong we can also find some unique and endangered animals i.e. Romer’s Tree Frog (龍仕小樹蛙) Golden Coin Turtle/ Cuora trifasciata(金錢烏龜), Pangolin(穿山甲) 

3/ Besides in rural environment, do you think it is necessary to have biodiversity in urban areas?

Yes, it is necessary. Biodiversity besides acts like a benchmark which informs us whether the environment is good or bad, it is also important to the ecosystem as at the end a high biodiversity will benefit back to us human-beings.


If we plant more tress, the trees will provide us many services i.e. air cleansing, reducing heat island effect and provide shading in urban environment. They also support other animals such as pollinator, animals which eat tree fruits.


Biodiversity is like playing Tetris, the more creatures we can preserve is like the more blocks we have in the Tetris. If we remove one species in an urban area, we are removing one block from the Tetris. We never know how many more blocks we can pull out until the whole system collapses.


At the end, biodiversity is not only the matter of human beings but the whole planet.


Therefore, it’s still very important to keep the biodiversity in urban areas.

4/ Besides for appreciation and recreational purposes, can you share with us what other purposes they can have in our urban environment?

This question is a bit complicated, as it touches upon the issues of urban planning.  The big question is:   what should we plant in our city?



In the past, our government mostly considered species which have appreciation value and didn’t consider much whether it is a local species or not. Popularity comes first. i.e. Golden trumpet tree (Handroanthus chrysotrichu風鈴木) is one of the popular plants in Hong Kong due to its yellow flowers.


However, if we only consider solely for the purpose of appreciation, we may overlook other considerations.


For example, we tend to plant a lot of flowering trees from South America due to their bright colors and attractive flowers. Although there are still flowers, but the shape of the flower may only be suitable for South American birds and insects but not for those in Hong Kong. The local indigenous creatures may not be able to benefit from these non-local plants.


In my opinion, it is better to have more local plants in the urban area to increase the ecological value in our city. There are actually some nice local plants that we can consider.  Our government has already recognized this issue and started to plant more local species.


For example, Kurogane Holly(鐵冬青) flower may not be very attractive, but in autumn and winter, it will have many red fruits and becomes very pretty. The fruits are also suitable for consumption by local birds.


Ivy tree (Schefflera heptaphylla鴨腳木) is very common in country parks in Hong Kong. It provides nectar for animals and insects in winter. Their flower may not be very attractive, but the shape and the form of the plant is suitable when we can consider planting in urban areas.

 

5/ You have mentioned insects just now. Knowing that your organization also promotes insect conservation, can you share more information with us?

Yes, we can first explain why we want to promote insects.


Our organization (Outdoor Wildlife Learning Hong Kong, OWLHK) wants to try many new ideas, one of it is to use different themes. We want to help the marginal group in the environment.


Usually when we talk about environmental protection, we will immediately think about larger and beautiful animals like birds. Insects other than butterfly and dragonfly, draw very little concerns in the discourse and we usually have negative impression towards most insects. 


We want to change this perception and let the public know insects have their bright, genius, interesting and important side. They act as an important role in the ecosystem and provide a lot of services to the ecosystem. Therefore, we do a lot of educational work related to ecosystem services 生態系統服務. 


We have done an educational programme which is about conducting a survey on invertebrates in Lantau island. 


We designed the programme like the game Pokamon-go, in which we invited the participants to work as a team, use their own smart phone to take photos and upload their works on an online platform with a specific time frame of around 3 weeks in specific areas in Lantau.


This is important as we have limited survey on insects in Hong Kong. By designing it as a game and as an educational programme, the public can also contribute to scientific research. 


As we did not limit the kinds of insects that the public can document, this has highly increased the variety in the database. In the past there were mainly records on butterflies and dragonflies, but this time we even have records on stink bug(臭屁蟲) and cockroach. In Hong Kong, it is common to have cockroaches in rural area. They are not filthy, but are professional recyclers, chowing down just about anything, including dead plants and animals, and animal waste. 


At the end of the programme, we have organized a press conference and showcased a lot of records which have never been done in Hong Kong. 


Before this activity, it is hard to imagine the public will take photos of cockroach in the fields and realized this is a species that has never been recorded before. We find there is great potential in this kind of public engagement activity. 


Another program that we are doing a project called the “Insect Hotel”.  We want to promote some actions in urban areas such as schools.


The concept of insect hotel is to use bricks to create nests for solidary bees, just like man-made bee hives and bird house, which helps the insects to reproduce. 


As we have destroyed a lot of a lot of natural environment to construct our city, we hope this can act as a compensation to provide places for insect to survive. 

6/ Urban design in Hong Kong are mostly human-centric based and shows less concerns in the needs of other beings. Most of the time we recognize the existence of other creatures only because they create some nuisance to our life, such as the previous wild boar culling and the axed Bonham Road banyan trees event. What is your suggestion to allow human and animals can co-exist in our urban environment or can even create a symbiosis relationship?

The reason why our city is human-centric based is mainly due to our education. There is not enough emphasis on environmental education and we tend to see the city from the human point of view.


However, some western countries have already tried to emphasis that human is only being part of the ecosystem. Besides caring about the human needs, we also need to take care of other species in the system in order to sustain. In Hong Kong, we are still lacking this kind of vision, but I see there are some changes recently.


Our government is trying to make some improvements. For example, in the north Tung Chung new town development, there are study on increasing the biodiversity in the new town area. In the past, they might only consider how many sq.m of green area for recreational purpose but now they are thinking about wild life corridor, so that the city development may not disrupt the original wildlife pathway. They are now also considering planting more local species to provide food for local animals and insects.


I think there are multiple layers that we can do.


So firstly, it is about education. Urban planning is also very important and then it comes to hardware design.


When coming into hardware design, just like your current research project, I think there are lots of good intention. If we are willing to spend more time on design details in creating space for other species, this can already benefit other animals a lot.


Just like your proposal on railing, I saw you added a layer (cover) which can already allow many insects to stay there and reproduce.  Just creating some very small space can already help the insects a lot.


However, the most important is still education, that human are only one part of the system rather than on top of the system. I hope this concept can slowly be promoted.


In the case of wild boar in Hong Kong, this is a complicated matter.

Another example could be the Asian Koel (噪鵑/ 升key 鳥). In spring time, many people complain about their sound and want the government to chase them away.


This way of thinking is totally human-centric. If we can think the other way around and ask ourselves why the birds need to cope with our preference? Why not we human beings adapt to their needs and habit?


Birds call in springtime due to mating needs. If they don’t do so, they cannot create their next generation!


If we can be more caring and have more understanding, most issues can be solved in a better way. In the end, it is us who have urbanized their original living area, we should be the one who adapt to their basic needs.


Therefore, we are trying to use different interesting and creative means to let the public to understand our direct and indirect relations with nature.