Long Tsz Wai

is the Chief Executive Officer of Land Education Foundation. He mainly works in the community development project in Lantau focusing on farmland preservation. In the past, he has also worked in place making, such as the DVRC walkability project.  Loong has also been engaged in many social issues such as environmental protection, urban planning and housing in Hong Kong.

1/ Why are you interested in rural revitalization work?

About 3-4 years ago, I moved to a village called San Shek Wan Village

(散石灣村) in Lantau Island where, my mum and my grandfather lived in the past.


Before I joined this organization, I have already been working on some rural projects as a volunteer. When I first came across the project “Farm to Table in Mui Wo”, a project led by Land Education Foundation, I realized Lantau was a very special place. The population size is around 7000-8000, which is very suitable for community support agriculture (CSA).


There are new farmers, engaged local community which includes westerns and locals who have a certain level of consumption power. The environment is a bit similar to the Japanese Satoyama (里山) quality, which makes it worth to set up projects.


Once we started to see the potential, in only 3 years we have already gained certain level of community support. This year we have even received government grants to continue our project.

2/ You have mentioned about community support agriculture (CSA), how do you make the residents in Mui Wo be interested in the local ecology and understand the importance?

In Hong Kong, we tend to emphasize more on wetland ecology but not on farmlands. That differs from other environmental organizations which focus on wetland or paddy fields, we work with dryland farmers who plant vegetables or fruits with eco-farming techniques, and most importantly who have a vision in sustainable community.


In the process, we invite the community not only to buy local food, but to also visit the farms so they can know the person (the farmer) who produces the food.


When we talk about ecology, we believe that the most important thing is to develop a relationship between human and the environment. If we can connect the people with the farmland, they will realize that they are not only the customers who purchase the food, but participants who can enhance their knowledge in agricultural ecology.


In the past, we have also collaborated with other organizations to observe dragonflies at night with organized community night walk.


I think all these all crucial for environmental protection. A larger picture is that we also need to use economic incentives to sustain the farmers. If the farmers are not there, more farmlands will be converted into brown fields.


Therefore, economic incentive and community engagement are crucial in CSA projects. Only when the community supports the farmer by purchasing local agricultural products, agricultural revitalization and environmental protection can be continued.

3/ What is the relationship between agricultural ecosystem (農業生態) and biodiversity(生態多樣性)?

They are two different concepts.  Different types of farmlands have different degree of biodiversity. If we talk about biodiversity, surely wetland has richer biodiversity than dryland, but biodiversity is not what we want to focus on. This is because if we only emphasize on enhancing biodiversity, all environmental projects in Hong Kong can only be conservation projects which ask for government subsidies. This is not practical in our opinion.


Farming is not subsidized by the government in Hong Kong yet. However, if we can farm with deeper understanding of the social and cultural aspects of the community, we can preserve a certain degree of biodiversity.


What we want to do but still trying is to develop a system to indicate the degree of biodiversity in dryland farming. We think developing such a system is essential, as this can become an evidence to the policy maker that farmlands also have ecological value and should be protected.


In the UK, they have already developed a system to quantify the degree of biodiversity in farmlands. Their agriculture policy has already clearly stated that a farmland must have certain percentage of plants which can attract pollinators. They also have a very detailed guidelines to measure the ecological value of farmland. By contrast, in Hong Kong we are only at the state of guarding our farmland and not letting it further deteriorate into brownfields.


These are our views on the relationship between agricultural ecology and biodiversity.

We don’t believe that wetland perseveration is the only way to protect the environment. 

4/ Are you using farmland as a medium to connect humans with other species or to recreate a relationship between humanity and natural environment?

Yes, in Mui Wo this is an important issue, especially since there are many wild cattle and water buffalos. Wild cattle in Mui Wo is a complicated issue as it touches the topic of animal rights, community and agriculture preservation. If you don’t understand the animals, we may easily get into conflicts with them. Our role is to educate and to resolve those conflicts in the community.

5/ In the case of Mui Wo, how we can live together with other animals peacefully?

We can, but we need to be smarter. In the case of water buffalos, sometimes they may eat the vegetables in the farmland. We need to be smarter, so we can avoid those situations in a smarter way. For example, we can plant herbs at the outer edge of our land, as water buffalos don’t like to eat herbs normally, unless they are very hungry. 


Nowadays, there is not enough grass for them to eat and sometimes they can be really hungry. Then in such circumstances we shouldn’t blame the water buffalos for any aggressive behavior. In general, if we can have more understanding, there are always ways for co-existence.


One existing issue is about waste collection. In Mui Wo, the government has invited Hong Kong Polytechnic University to design a trash bin which the wild cattle cannot enter. This is a means of prevention, which I think is a useful policy.


Another issue is about traffic. Lantau cattle were sometimes killed in road accidents. As Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) has hired shepherds to guide the wild cattle, so the government have ways to know their daily routine. As they know the habits of the wild cattle, it’s easier for them to think of policy which allows people and wild cattle to co-exist. For example, if we can simply erect signage on the road to remind drivers to be aware of wild cattle, we can prevent serious accident.


Some people may argue that there are too many wild cattle and this causes many conflicts. However, this is also because of our rapid urbanization which causes their original habitat shrinking. Yet this is another bigger problem to be solved.


In Hong Kong, we have 3000-4000ha of abandoned farmland, while the total area of public and private housing is only 4000ha. However, our government has no clear policy to define the role of farmland. Is the government going to make effective policies that will conserve the farmland or will all land eventually be used to build housing?


If all the remaining farmland will be developed into housing, co-existence between human and wild animals is a bit unrealistic. The greenbelt next to the farmland is the habitat of many wild animals. If we change all farmland into urban area, more and more conflicts will be raised between wild animals and human.


A better way will be to find a consensus to develop an overall planning on the distribution of farmland, urban area and preserved area. Then we will know in which way and with what kind of design we can allow the animals to live and not easily disturbed by human activities.


We need an overall planning, rather than waiting for conflicts to happen. In the meantime, we can only do some small adjustments and preventions but cannot solve the bigger picture which is at a policy level.


Sometimes the farmers have told me their crops have been eaten by wild cattle and they want to complain to AFCD. However, there’s not much the government can do as they only have 2 staff in charge of the cattle issues. It was hard to tell the farmer the importance of co-existence in that moment, as the farmer was already very upset. Once his anger has gone, he may fix his fence and may consider planting more grass for the buffalos to eat to prevent similar accidents to occur. In the end, the farmer even suggested to me that maybe AFCD can have some funding to design special fences which can prevent wild cattle to enter.


What I want to express is that conflicts between human and wild animals are not one-sided. It’s not black and white. How we can let the human to see their relationship with wild animals is important.  Our programs insist on the experience, so firstly people can build a relationship and understanding towards the wild animals and the environment. Then we can talk more about co-existence and conservation.


Now more environmental groups have started to understand they cannot only give reasons by environmental protection is good policy. They are now trying to educate the importance of environmental protection through experiential learning and hands-on experience.


For example, when they talk about beach preservation, instead of prohibiting the public digging clams, they start to invite the public to dig and to measure the clams and mussels. Then finally to educate them about the animal lifespan and beach preservation. They would also invite local villagers to talk about the environmental change. Their objective has now shifted to build a relationship between the species, the community and the public.

 

Yes, although our organization cannot reach the level of planning, we are trying to change people’s perception towards animals.


For example, the wild cattle are producing a lot of excrement on the road and increases the workload of the cleaners. We tried to design tools to ease the feces collecting process and to give the waste products to farmers as fertilizers. This is an example on how design can reduce the opportunity cost and conflicts.


Although this may be a small act, but only through small and daily actions we can achieve a wider public will and to change the public view. And only with public support, we can enhance our city hardware design.


Another example is about bird watching. Some of my friends are wildlife photographer, and they are very aware of hiding the exact location of their photo taking place.

This is a common consensus in wildlife photography in Hong Kong as they do not want too many people to be able to locate those rare birds and create nuisance to them.

This is also a kind of education, as sometimes it is better to leave the animal alone, and not being disturbed.


Wild cattle in Grass Island is the other side of the story. As there are more and more visitors in the island, the cattle are being treated like zoo animals for photo taking. This situation also explains the importance of building up a proper relationship as it will deeply affect the meaning of co-existence.


The main principle is how we can facilitate the existence and habitats of wild animals and the intention behind needs to be clearly delivered to the public.

7/ You emphasis on the importance in creating relationships and your method is to use different activities to create chances for the public to be able to know more about ecology and to understand the needs of other animals. Besides education, in the aspect of urban design what kind of directions we can build relationship more easily?


In the past, we only thought in terms of zoning, for example, country parks for animals, urban zones for human. Nowadays we need to expand our urban area, but our urban design is still human-centric, and doesn’t help to build up relationship with the environment. When we need to expand our urban area, how can we be able to build up relationship with other species?

Zoning and the construction of nature reserves are also related to how we treat animals. If we think they are something needs to be protected, we set up a boundary to enclose them. Therefore, the first step is to acknowledge that we cannot expand without limit and we must face the issue of co-existence.


Nowadays why we can see the water buffalos on the street is because our urban development is so rapid that we cannot use boundary to separate the habitat of wild animals and our urban area anymore. We need to accept the fact that we need to live with wild animals in the same area now.


As we cannot take care of all animals, we then need to think which kind of animals or plants we have a larger responsibility to protect and which are less urgent.


In our daily life, some animals live closer with us, so we will always mention them. The closest of course is our house pets (cats and dogs), then the second groups maybe the water buffalos. Some animals may not be directly relating to us, such as birds.


For those who are closer to us, we may need to be more aware of taking care of them in the city, so we can co-exist. For example, taking care of them by setting up signage, regulations, provide food, and so on.


Let’s say our park design, is mostly human-centric, as most of the plants are for aesthetic purposes. If we need to think about ecology in the park design we will design differently. A certain percentage of the plants need to be attractive to pollinators to enhance biodiversity.  We may also need to change our urban design guidelines as well.


This is an important step as we finally acknowledge our responsibility towards the survival of other species.


Just like living with our pets, some pet owners are willing to change their home design in order to cater the needs of their pets. This is based on the understanding of the pet owner towards their pet, which is further based upon their close relationship.


In urban design, the most difficult part is to convince people that we are in a close relationship with other species and that we have the duty to take care of them in order to co-exist.