The latest controversial tree felling shows us that our tree-protection laws are woefully inadequate, writes John Robertson

Lawyer Melanie Moore was driving down MacDonnell Road one Saturday when she noticed something was out of place. A large part of a well-known, well-loved wall tree in the neighborhood was missing. She contacted the management company for an explanation, but none was forthcoming. Days later, she was shocked to learn that all but the roots of the tree had been removed.

“The Lands Department should issue fines to those responsible and order replanting,” says Moore, a resident in Hong Kong for 11 years. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I’ve seen numerous instances of this before, and a lot of the time the government does little or nothing about it.”
Current laws and official policy towards trees on private land certainly provide scant protection. The case in question is just the latest in a string of tree hackings and fellings, both illegal and legal, that have been drawing increasing public concern and outright anger over the last two years.

Local resident Albert Leung witnessed the MacDonnell tree’s destruction firsthand. On Thursday morning, May 15, Leung saw two construction workers cutting up the tree: “I told them to stop,” he says. “I said the tree was very popular and it wasn’t anybody’s property and nobody had any right to cut it down.” The workers said they had received direct orders to cut the tree down from Mr. Ma, the manager of Austria Property Management, in charge of Wing Hong Mansion, who told him he was permitted by the Lands Department to carry out the destruction, but that he would nonetheless stop immediately.

“When I came back from work,” says Leung, “the tree was gone.”   Trees on private land remain highly vulnerable to such acts in Hong Kong. To start with, any legal protection from the government hinges on the details of the property’s land lease. “Only if the land lease has a tree protection clause in it does the government have the right to intervene on behalf of trees,” says So Kwok-yin, Conservation Manager of the Conservation Association. “Some old leases have old versions of such clauses, while those updated since the 1970s have more current ones; yet there are still a good number of them without any clause at all.”

“This is a problem,” says So, “because some of the oldest trees around will be some of the most valuable, and there are many cases, particularly in the New Territories, where they won’t be adequately protected or even protected at all.”
Moreover, on public land, trees that are especially old, large, rare, or of some cultural or historical importance are given “Old and Valuable Tree” (OVT) status by the government. This sets the trees aside for special protection, marking them as irremovable from land for development purposes and giving them a “tree protection zone.”

Currently, OVT status cannot be granted to any trees on private land in Hong Kong. “I think this is mainly an administration problem,” says So. “The government is simply afraid to encroach on private zones, or get involved with people’s private affairs.” Yet he points out that other cities all around the world already have such policies in place. “You can look at London, Australian and American cities, or you can look closer to home at Taiwan and the mainland, they already have such protection. We need to change the laws to ensure that all trees on private land get the similar treatment.”

Yet this is just the start of the problem for trees on private land in Hong Kong. At the moment, destruction of those theoretically protected—i.e., those on land with tree protection clauses—is often neglected by the government.
Moore cites the case of the trees above Bishop House in Glenealy, Central, as one of a number of tolerated offences. “At the playground there were open tree rings with dead trees,” she says. ”The Lands Department says there’s a tree preservation clause for that area, yet in late fall of last year they just dug up the stumps and instead of replanting, they paved over it with cement.”

In other instances, officially protected trees have been subjected to extreme cases of “pruning.” “Pruning is a regular step in tree care,” says a spokesperson for the Lands Department, “and hence no prior approval is required.” Yet in many cases, it’s almost inconceivable how such putative pruning, which includes lopping off large tree limbs, is supposed to provide “care.”

One particularly controversial example occurred in March last year, when 21 banyans by Citibank Tower on Garden Road were severely lopped because a senior member of the management office thought them “an eyesore.” This incident has prompted debates about where to draw the line between pruning and felling.

Nonetheless, it’s not tough to see what happened with the  MacDonnell tree: “There’s no question this case is definitely a felling, not a pruning,” says So. “The whole tree is gone except for the roots.”

Yet sadly, and shockingly, it appears that the destruction is entirely legal. According to the Lands Department, “the land lease concerned is an old lease which does not contain a tree preservation clause, as in the case of more recent leases, and hence no permission is required for any tree removal and there is no breach of the lease for any tree felling.” In other words, “a perfect example of why the laws need to change,” says So.

Leung and Moore both agree. But is there enough public support for change? “I know a lot of MacDonnell Road residents who will be very upset about the latest incident,” says Leung. “A lot of locals are concerned, but the problem is that people don’t want to speak out.”

According to So, a growing number of people are already becoming vocal. “The toppling of 20 mature banyans in Leung King Estate in Tuen Mun in 2006 was the first case that really got people riled up,” he says, adding that since then public debate over the matter has been getting louder.

Moore herself hopes more people will look out for the health of local trees. “I think Hong Kong is a beautiful place with a lot of green, but people often aren’t creative about replanting and preventing tree deaths. I’m not trying to change the world. This is actually a small issue compared to things like air pollution, but it’s still one that’s important.”