Should Hong Kong’s geopark introduce a visitor quota after dinosaur fossil find?

Port Island closed off for geological investigation after rare find, but geopark currently has no limits on individual visitor traffic

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Port Island already has a following among tourists for its picturesque red rocks. Photo: Handout

Published: 2:53pm, 27 Oct 2024Updated: 6:40pm, 27 Oct 2024

More protective measures including visitor quotas should be introduced at the site of Hong Kong’s first dinosaur fossil find, experts have said amid an uptick in interest among social media users to visit Port Island.

The city’s development minister earlier estimated the island would be closed off for further geological investigation for at least a month, citing the coming monsoon season and hopes from experts that more fossils could be found.

The site is also part of one of two geological regions in Sai Kung that were designated as a geopark by Unesco, the UN’s heritage body, in 2011.

The Sai Kung Volcanic Rock Region and Northeast New Territories Sedimentary Rock Region were later recognised as a Unesco Global Geopark in 2015.

Port Island is one of several protected zones in the geopark where visitors are “not encouraged” to land and advised instead to appreciate it remotely via boat tours.

“We believe it will take at least one month, or even longer, to gather samples on Port Island,” Secretary for Development Bernadette Linn Hon-ho said on Saturday.