|
| (From left) Martin Cheng, Gray Williams and Terrence Ng of the Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) of the University of Hong Kong display different marine species in Hong Kong's waters. ( Photo by Carrie Qiu / China Daily) |
Marine life experts urged the Hong Kong government to increase marine protected area, after research revealed on Thursday that the city accommodates about 26 percent of all marine species recorded in China.
Hong Kong, with a marine area only about 0.03% of the country’s total, has as many as 5,943 recorded marine species
The research, conducted by the Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) of the University of Hong Kong, came to the conclusion after reviewing more than 640 publications and coming up with what it called the first complete set of statistics of all marine species in Hong Kong since records began in the 1940s.
It showed that Hong Kong, with a marine area only about 0.03 percent of the country’s total, has as many as 5,943 recorded marine species.
Some species became extinct over the past decades while other new and unrecorded species emerged, bringing the estimated total number of local marine species to around 6,500, said project manager Terence Ng Pun-tung of SWIMS on Thursday.
|
| Cephalopod (Photo by Gomen See/Swire Institute of Marine Science) |
The research aims to provide evidence of the richness of marine species and raise public awareness to protect and conserve Hong Kong’s biodiversity, said the leading researcher, Gray Williams of SWIMS.
Under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which China joined in 1993 and extended to Hong Kong in 2011, the target of marine protected area is at least 10 percent by 2020. But only less than 2 percent of Hong Kong’s marine area is protected as marine parks or reserves at the moment.
The public mostly focus on plastic and waste pollution which can be seen, but there are unseen threats, said Williams. For example, sewage can change the chemical and hormone levels of water, which will greatly affect marine biodiversity.
He said that one way to tackle the problem is to build more protected areas, as water can be tested to control the chemical and hormone levels.
The Hong Kong government has committed to building three new marine parks in the next few years. The planned launch of the Brothers Marine Park in northern Lantau was announced earlier in December, which will bring Hong Kong’s marine protected area to more than 2 percent of its coastal and marine areas.
|
| Fish (Photo by Calton Law/Swire Institute of Marine Science) |
