1,003 Hectares Gone: Ten Years of Permanent Habitat Loss in Hong Kong

 

1,003 Hectares Gone: Ten Years of Permanent Habitat Loss in Hong Kong

Originally published in Chinese on 30 April 2026.

Since 1998, the government has required Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) before major projects, to provide a scientific basis for compensating habitat loss and mitigating impacts. In recent big development plans, however, EIAs have become a tool for lending “legitimacy” to controversial projects, as with the shelved Kau Yi Chau artificial islands reclamation plan[Note 1].

Even with compensation, such as replanting trees or relocating species, permanently lost habitats cannot be fully replaced. When cities expand into natural habitats, it is hard to say that the overall ecological value afterwards is better than before. In recent decades Hong Kong has faced the Ten Major Infrastructure Projects and many other works, often clustered close together, so the cumulative impact is large. There is a lack of overall view of how much habitat Hong Kong has lost over time, and few studies of the speed and extent of recent urbanization. Permanent habitat loss recorded in EIAs is one important indicator.

Our researcher reviewed all EIA reports from 2015 to 2025 for projects that assessed “Ecological Impacts”, and found that the hectares of land these projects have caused, or will cause, to be permanently lost as habitat comes to 1.8 Lion Rock Country Parks.

▍Four NM Zones Account for Nearly Half of the Loss?

We counted the non-urbanized or disturbed habitats permanently lost in 26 EIA reports over ten years [Note 2, Note 3]. The accumulated permanent loss is 1,003 hectares, 1.8 times the area of Lion Rock Country Park (557 hectares). It breaks down as follows:

Type of permanent habitat loss | Area lost

➢ Farmland (of which in active use) | 56.73 ha (23.16 ha) = over 9 times the Lai Chi Wo restored farmland

➢ Fung shui woods / woodland / plantation | 151.94 ha = about 27 Hong Kong Zoological and Botanical Gardens

➢ Village / orchard | 184.29 ha = about 1.2 Kadoorie Farm and Botanic Garden

➢ Shrubland and grassland | 137.29 ha = about 0.8 Fanling Golf Course

➢ Marsh and fishponds | 114.71 ha = about 2 Hong Kong Wetland Parks

➢ Watercourses | 16.61 ha = about 4 times the revitalized Kai Tak River

➢ Intertidal zone and sea surface | 169.64 ha = about 16 Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelters

➢ Seabed | 200.01 ha = about 1.3 times the artificial island of the HZMB Hong Kong Port

Of this, 485 hectares (over 40%) of permanent habitat loss comes from four projects within the Northern Metropolis:

NM projects | Permanent habitat loss | Main habitat types lost

➢ Lok Ma Chau / San Tin development | 219.36 ha | Fishponds, village/orchard, fung shui woods/woodland

➢ Hung Shui Kiu New Development Area | 103.83 ha | Village/orchard, plantation

➢ Ngau Tam Mei area development | 72.96 ha | Village/orchard, fung shui woods/woodland, fishponds

➢ Yuen Long South housing sites | 35.47 ha | Village/orchard, fung shui woods/woodland, active farmland

Overall, the five largest projects alone account for over 800 hectares of permanent loss, more than four-fifths of the total, and three of them are Northern Metropolis projects:

Top five projects | Permanent habitat loss | Main habitat types lost

➢ Tung Chung New Town Extension | 314.67 ha | Seabed, sea surface and water bodies

➢ San Tin / Lok Ma Chau development* | 219.36 ha | Fishponds, village/orchard, fung shui woods/woodland

➢ Hung Shui Kiu New Development Area* | 103.83 ha | Village/orchard, plantation

➢ Tseung Kwan O Area 17 and related reclamation | 91.83 ha | Seabed, sea surface and water bodies

➢ Ngau Tam Mei area development* | 72.96 ha | Village/orchard, fung shui woods/woodland, fishponds

*Northern Metropolis project

The full list of permanent habitat loss from major projects (2015-2025) is in the comments / IG Story.

▍Mitigation Does Not Make Habitat Loss Acceptable

Since “1:1 area” compensation is hard to achieve in Hong Kong (the “no net loss” principle for wetlands was recently broken [Note 4]), recent environmental compensation thinking is moving toward “environmental capacity” or “no loss of ecological function” [Note 5], substituting “quality” for “quantity”. Its feasibility is unknown. It is worth asking whether the current measures that make up “quantity” with “quality” actually work, because any new compensation approach built on similar thinking may share their problems:

🚩 Wildlife crossings through fragmented woods and wetlands?

Ngau Tam Mei and Lok Ma Chau / San Tin developments will “cut up” wetland and woodland habitats. Both EIAs recommend “wildlife corridors” so that animals ranging from the common East Asian Porcupine to the rare Leopard Cat can “cross” the Northern Metropolis.

Wildlife corridors are widely used around the world to let animals move safely after part of their habitat is developed. But simply building a crossing does not solve the problem. Many ecologists have questioned their effectiveness, which depends on design and species behavior and, above all, on how badly the original habitat is destroyed (remaining area and quality). It is not a once-and-for-all fix [Note 6]. In dense cities, corridors can also lead to roadkill [Note 7], and Ngau Tam Mei and Lok Ma Chau / San Tin, next to the high-rise San Tin Technopole, may be no different; green groups have raised the same concern [Note 8].

🚩 compensating habitat elsewhere?

There is also off-site compensation. For example, the reed/marsh habitat lost to Ngau Tam Mei development is “flown” two or three kilometers away, beside Yoho Fairyland in Yuen Long, on the other side of Kai Kung Leng [Note 9]. The failure rate of such “wetland reconstruction” is as high as 70% internationally [Note 10], and a “new” wetland squeezed between private estates and busy roads is likely to fail even more often.

▍”Urban-Rural Integration” Myth and Reality

The recent wave of major infrastructure has cost Hong Kong over a thousand hectares of net habitat. In the past, only projects of 20 hectares or more needed an EIA (the threshold has recently risen to 50 hectares), so the permanent loss from countless smaller projects is not counted. The negative impact is clear and undeniable, even after compensation, and some compensation measures help little.

Notably, the areas of Hong Kong richest in ecology and habitat have suffered the most permanent loss over the past decade. The Northern Metropolis’s most important natural habitat is wetland, along with farmland. It holds an internationally important Ramsar Site, the Mai Po Nature Reserve, surrounded by fishponds. Villagers who farm and fish nearby, with the wetlands, woodlands and farmland, make up the rural landscape, the “rural” half of the “urban-rural integration” planning principle that is supposed to be conserved. But rural habitats have been shrinking and deteriorating for years.

Although the Northern Metropolis seems to be at an early stage, it is already under way, because the largest projects with the greatest effect on natural habitat are already part of today’s Northern Metropolis, even though no complete Northern Metropolis plan existed when they began (Lok Ma Chau / San Tin, Hung Shui Kiu New Development Area, the Lok Ma Chau Loop development, and others). The “rural” in “urban-rural integration” has been vanishing all along, so real integration will be a bigger challenge than imagined. Making up for the huge accumulated habitat loss, and for the losses from future projects, cannot be achieved by urban design or by creating “environmental capacity” alone.

[Note 1] Civil Engineering and Development Department. 23 May 2025. Kau Yi Chau Artificial Islands: preliminary proposals.

[Note 2] Only urban-development projects are counted, not transport projects. Where permanently lost habitat overlaps geographically between projects, it is not double-counted.

[Note 3] “Developed Area / Wasteland” excluded.

[Note 4] Ming Pao. 23 February 2024. Making way for the Technopole: 247 hectares of the Wetland Buffer Area proposed for removal, no need to follow the “no net loss” principle; seven green groups sign joint letter urging the Town Planning Board to safeguard it today.

[Note 5] Planning Department. October 2016. Sustainable development for environmental protection and nature conservation.

[Note 6] Sustainability Atlas. February 28, 2026. Myths vs. realities: Wildlife corridors & habitat connectivity — what the evidence actually supports.

[Note 7] Liber Research Community. Travel Without Care: A Study of the Ecotourism Crisis Amid a Policy Vacuum (《旅見不善 政策真空下生態旅遊危機研究報告》)

[Note 8] HK01. 8 October 2024. Green groups fear San Tin Technopole development will bring drastic changes to otter habitat.

[Note 9] AECOM. Ngau Tam Mei Area Development, Executive Summary. Section 3.8.8.

[Note 10] Hong Kong Bird Watching Society. We urge the Environmental Protection Department to reject the EIA report for the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line.