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Letter to the Editor of TIME Magazine dated 11 May 2006 -- Response to its cover story on "Green Dreams"
The HKSAR government is committed to and is working relentlessly to improving our environment. Our work in HK itself has clear objectives and implementation goals backed up by a well-established institutional set up. This set up now extends to Guangdong where our Chief Executive, Mr Donald Tsang, and the Guangdong Governor, Mr Huang Huahua, oversee a Joint Liaison Group to agree on action plans and monitor progress on the environment for the whole Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. The target on air quality is to achieve emission reductions for both sides by 2010 (-40% SO2, -20% NOx, -55% RSP, -55% VOC). The reduction programme has started and 16 state-of-the-art monitoring stations are now up and running.
From 1991-2000, HK's emissions of nitrogen oxides are down 52% (Seoul +27.3% ); Particulate matter down 40.8% ( Seoul -44.6%); and Sulphur Dioxide down 57% ( Seoul -40%). If one compares air quality annual data of recent years the levels at the two cities are very similar.
Our public transport systems, buses and trains, move over 6 million passengers a day and the service is recognized as amongst the top in the world. For this reason we manage to keep the number of private car owner down to 300,000 for a population 7 millions concentrated on 600 sq km and the traffic actually flows.
Over 7.8 million trees were planted in the past three years. Extensive urban greening master plans are drawn up for all busy districts in addition to existing highway planting and slope coverage. Our country parks occupy nearly 47% of total land area of 1000sq km and are located just 45 minutes away beyond the concrete jungle. The Time Magazine recognized the Dragon's Back Trail as "Asia's Best" in 2004 for good reasons.
I would invite you to write about our Shing Mun River which has been reincarnated recently from a dead nullah into a living river, sustaining its own course happily while allowing human to enjoy it - not to abuse it.
Dr Sarah Liao
Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works
Hong Kong Special Administration Region Government
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