Tree, it’s a life
Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
So sad that an old big tree is painfully dying in Kowloon park… If it can speak, I guess she would have yelled when people cutting her roots when plough up the soil to build the tennis courts next to her. Later when her roots are pressed on with concrete and hard soil, she would have shouted "I’m suffocating!". If she had a face for us to see, when she got weaker and start infected by fungus, her face would be grey and miserable. However she had none of the above and now she is dying in agony.
Realistically, who really cared about that tree until she is broken today? Who really think serious what trees means to the community?Few government officials might care, but they never go out to see for themselves whether their orders are done properly. They said "we have >40 by-laws and several ways to stop people damaging trees in the territory", but everyone sees in their eyes how effective those are. Trees are being cut, axed, humiliated even in country parks, not to mention countless outside.
Officials sometimes are out of their mind, or are being realistic: achievement, figures, sense of "I did something" - a sound barrier would be built in Tai Po Tai Wo road because the noise level is too high. At the moment it is an open road with wide pedestrian walkways, along side the calm Lam Tsuen river, flowing out to Tolo Harbour, breezes are plenty, and people come to enjoy the view, the wind, jogging out to the Tai Po Harbourside Park. Trees are planted alongside each side of the road. Pleasant isn’t it? However residents living in the estate next to it complained about bad noise in rush hours, and officials think something has to be done. Originally they plan to lay noise-absorbing materials onto the road, but they changed their mind to layout tall, encasing sound barrier (with rooftop) on this road! Reason? there are materials left from building barriers on Tolo Highway and should not be wasted. (Hey, saving is saving, but did u consider whether it is appropriate to built one in town?) Another reason they explained is that trees on-site are not enough to dampen the noise from the road, therefore, they have to cut down all trees on the road when building, and would consider planting new ones after the barrier is finished. (Wow, what a reason, don’t u consider planting more trees? Rather u want some good money and achievement figures and putting up huge metal frames on the road. Better still, they add figures to "new trees planted" on government survey, but then the site would be cramped and trees just have no space to grow, thank you.) You may now figure out what the air quality would be like in that area when the barrier is built and what it’s like when it done. Anything but better. Also the first few floors of the river-facing flats their views would be blocked by the barrier itself, to the proximity comes mosquitoes from water gathered on the top, and rubbish and dirt trapped on the site. Worse still, this horrible plan is accepted by residents on the area. I just don’t understand why both government officials have the brain to propose and residents have the brain to accept this. They should have stand firm for the noise-absorbing material proposal, only if they knew there was such a plan…
Ourselves have responsibility too. Nevertheless us citizens are damaging trees around as well.
