Ready for ecotourism?

Ecotourism is now defined as “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment, sustains the well-being of the local people, and involves interpretation and education” (TIES, 2015).

Despite possessing the favorable conditions needed for ecotourism, such as an abundance of natural beauty and biodiversity, Hong Kong has achieved only limited success in ecotourism development in terms of business potential and increasing tourist arrivals. Therefore,pushing forward the ecotourism has always been important for decision-makers, as an driver of sustainable development and a crucial factor in making our future urban landscape more diversity, resilient and unique.

Long Valley is used to be an enormous agricultural farmland, but some area of the site turn to be wetland and other habitats after transformation of economic activities. Nowadays, Long Valley is a triangular area of streams, wet and dry vegetable fields, ponds, grass, scrub and small areas of fung shui woodland situated just west of Sheung Shui between the Sheung Yue River and Shek Sheung River. It only takes 30 mins to reach this unique sightseeing destination if departure from Sheung Shui Station.

Long Valley comprises a mosaic of freshwater wetland habitats and is the largest area of such habitats in Hong Kong. Unlike the Deep Bay wetland system, it is not of international ecological significance, but it is significant in a Hong Kong context.

The freshwater wetlands attract a different suite of wetland birds to those which use the Deep Bay wetlands (which are mostly saline or brackish). It is particularly important for freshwater wetland birds such as bitterns, Black-winged Stilt, Greater Painted-snipe and rails and crakes.

It is also the most important area of agricultural wetland remaining in Hong Kong and attracts a wide variety of marshland and open-country birds, over 210 species of birds live there, including the Greater Painted-snipe, Von Schrenck's Bittern and Pallas's Grasshopper Warbler, as well as 25 bird species under special protection. It is a main wintering ground for migratory birds other than Mai Po.

Besides that, Long Valley is also an important cultural landscape. The site is enjoying a wealthy rural culture. There are 2 Grade I historic buildings, 4 Grade II historic buildings, and 8 Grade III historic buildings. The history of the site has been found around 700 years ago (in late Song Dynasty) when ancestors of Hau clan moved from mainland to settle down there. In addition, the annual Hung Shing Festival is one of the most impressive tradition rituals. The festival is held by the Village Council to celebrate five days and nights, along with traditional ones like firecrackers, lion dance, Cantonese Opera, Big Bowl Feast, and fireworks grabbing. All these activities are celebrating at Hau Ku Shek Ancestral Hall and its front open space. Each year the Village Council will spend around 200-300 thousand, which is 1/3 of the whole village's annual expenditure in order to appreciate the guardian of the village, "Hung Shing Tai Wong".Every year it attracts hundreds and thousands of visitors.

Long Valley is the largest single piece of freshwater wetland in Hong Kong. It provides an important habitat for birds and supports thriving biodiversity. There are also several indigenous villages with many villagers still practicing traditional agriculture for a living. The local communities, the traditional indigenous culture and many historical structures have been well preserved. We can see that, Long Valley has great potential to develop its own Eco-tourism. Unfortunately, due to lack of a comprehensive plan for the conservation of wildlife, educational value for respect nature and culture, and interesting programs and safety access to attract tourists, the Eco-tourism potential of the site has not been fully explored.

This project aims to demonstrate a sustainable development model that integrates the environmental, social and economic aspects in Long Valley as well as its surrounding villages. The project’s objectives are to –

• Protect and enhance the long-term ecological value of Long Valley;

• Promote the educational opportunity for respect the nature and culture; and

• Develop Long Valley into a popular ecotourism spot and generate new job opportunities. 

Hence, we study potential ecotourism in Long Valley. We identified a profound lack of understanding sustainability and its relationship with urban landscape in Asian cities, given the substantial differences in population density, ecological habitats and economic structure. Further, ecological value as a ecosystem impedance of unity in diversity has not been quantitatively examined in a spatial context, albeit theoretically and qualitatively analyzed. 

Besides, we believe the study could formulate program-specific policy responses to increase attraction for tourists and push forward with sustainability, given the Eco-tourism potential of the city has not been fully explored. The application of existing activities and tradition in deriving program implications could also lay foundation for attractive urban landscape.

The research is also driven by the lack of open data and sustainability related study in Long Valley, under the fact that both the government and private parties are only sharing limited spatial and sustainability data. Thus, we would like to capitalize on the new data collection and analysis method developed recently, to present a series of small findings about sustainability and potential ecotourism in Long Valley. 

The results or findings might not be significant or contradictory to common belief, hence we call for more exploration on the issue.

We rely on 4 major types of data in the analysis - environment data, land-use data, typology data, and culture data.

At the start of the project, the research was limited because certain types of valuable drainage-system data and ecosystem data were not available to the public (e.g. capacity of drainage system). The general estimates from the government could not provide an accurate projection of drainage system under the severe flooding situation in Long Valley. As a result, the research utilizes internet mapping service provider's big data for accurate estimation of the optimized capacity and mitigation for flooding.

Government's spatial data was obtained from tertiary institutes. In the meantime, Land-use data from the government is also used. Besides, the research takes advantage of publicly available open data from SPARC for analysis.

With background researches based on scholar efforts, the research differs from traditional accessibility researches in term of data collection and analysis methodology. The methodology is largely simplified as follows.

Here we use story charts to simplify analysis, results, and findings. The decisive factor for this study is primarily to narrow the literature gap and generate new research insights, and we are happy to answer any questions about the details of the study.

In view of above information we collected, here comes with a series of findings according to SWOT analysis which is a strategic planning technique used to help planner identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to project planning.

Based on above findings, this conceptual design proposal suggests 3 specific measures to tackle the barriers of pushing ecotourism.

1.Reallocate existing habitats so as to decrease disturbances caused by human activities. (Protect and enhance the long-term ecological value of Long Valley)

2.Extract elements of local ritual culture into design details. (Promote the educational value about reservation of culture and build a sense of belonging)

3.Introduce artistic programs and installation and provide various types of access to create an impressive education about beauty of nature.(Develop Long Valley into a popular ecotourism spot and generate new job opportunities)

Ecotourism has always been regarded as vital to the city's sustainable development, due to the provision of environmental education, generation of income opportunities, and fostering awareness to preserve the heritage and culture.

Despite possessing the favorable conditions needed for ecotourism, such as an abundance of natural beauty and biodiversity, Hong Kong has achieved only limited success in ecotourism development. Especially in Long Valley, well famous by its unique wildlife habitats, rich local rural culture, and convenient transport system.

However, due to lack of a comprehensive plan for the conservation of wildlife, educational value for respect nature and culture, and interesting programs and safety access to attract tourists, the Eco-tourism potential of Long Valley has not been fully explored.

In view of findings from SWOT analysis, this conceptual design proposal is trying to tackle those barriers of pushing forward the development of ecotourism. And the proposal suggests reallocation of habitats, extracting elements of local culture into design details and providing various types of access, and introduction of artistic programs and installations. Those methods are concerning social, economic and environmental aspects in order to promote a sustainable development and thus making our future urban landscape more diverse, resilient and unique.