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Life.Culture.Discovery.

She’s been protecting animals from pangolins to parrots for years – and she calls Hong Kong home

  • Wildlife trade researcher Astrid Andersson talks about how her passion for Hong Kong and its flora and fauna fuelled a career in conservation

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Growing up in Hong Kong, Astrid Andersson developed a passion for its wildlife and nature. She channelled that into research on the wildlife trade, and is pictured above searching for cockatoos in Komodo National Park, Indonesia. Photo: Astrid Andersson

My parents are from a tiny village in Sweden called Borensberg. They met when they were 16. My dad studied engineering and became an investment banker.

I was born in 1986, and in 1989, when my younger brother was only a few months old, we moved to Hong Kong. Although I was born in Sweden, I do not feel I am Swedish at all. Hong Kong is my home and I feel passionately and strongly about the city.

I grew up living in Chung Hom Kok, on Hong Kong Island. I had access to beaches, mountains and hiking trails, and had a real passion for wildlife. I had a few pets – a red-eared slider and a yellow bird – but I released them because I wanted them to be free.

Somewhere in my childhood psyche it was ingrained that animals shouldn’t be held captive. I preferred to see them in the wild. I was always looking for snakes, to my mum’s horror.

Astrid Andersson on campus at the University of Hong Kong in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
Astrid Andersson on campus at the University of Hong Kong in Pok Fu Lam. Photo: Xiaomei Chen
I remember being shocked and concerned to see shark’s fin on the menu in a restaurant and seeing elephant or mammoths’ tusk in shop windows on Hollywood Road.

Skyscrapers for sheep

I went to Kellett School, then West Island School, which at the time was very new. I completed high school at Rendcomb College, a boarding school in Gloucestershire, in the UK, trading in the skyscrapers for sheep.

Kate Whitehead is a journalist and author of two Hong Kong crime books, After Suzie and Hong Kong Murders. She is also a qualified psychotherapist and recently won the MIND Media Award for the second consecutive year.
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