The Chief Executives policy direction to ban commercial fishing in Hong Kong’s few marine parks will not be implemented until 2010 at the earliest.
This is disappointing and is the result of a need to make changes to legislation. These changes are required to enable the AFCD to revoke current licenses issued to commercial fishermen allowed to operate in the parks. Legislative changes take time and will be tabled to Legco in July 2009.
We prey that there will be no hiccups at Legco in July, as any objections at this time will push back the implementation by at least one more year. Living Seas will continue to monitor the situation and will work proactively to ensure that there are no further delays.