So Lo Pun villagers protest against unfair land treatment
About 200 rural villagers have cleared vegetation on a proposed conservation area in a country park enclave in So Lo Pun to protest against what they call unfair treatment over their private land.
About 200 rural villagers have cleared vegetation on a proposed conservation area in a country park enclave in So Lo Pun to protest against what they call unfair treatment over their private land.
The protesters included about 60 descendents from the village and the rest were mostly from country park enclaves across the New Territories.
The clearance, on October 5, followed a similar incident in August when Tai Ho villagers in north Lantau removed mangrove on private land zoned as a site of scientific interest. Many of the villagers involved in the Tai Ho action also took part in the So Lo Pun clearance.
Villagers are concerned about zoning for village house development which was converted to conservation area under the last version of the draft outline zoning plan for So Lo Pun.
They said more than 90 per cent of the conservation area was privately owned.
A spokesman for the Planning Department would not comment on the clearance but said officers were still barred from entering Tai Ho village.
So Lo Pun does not have road access. It was inhabited by the Wong clan until several decades ago when farming became unsustainable. The village and surrounding lands, north of Plover Cove, make up one of the city's largest country park enclaves.
