Hong Kong Biodiversity Strategy Action Plan – 2035

(BSAP)

This strategic area aims to prevent biodiversity loss and ensure ecological resilience through comprehensive, area-based habitat and species protection, recovery, and restoration.

Priority projects of interest to Living Seas

1. Establish new protected areas and other effective area conservation measures including one of our favourite sites at Sharp Island and work towards identification of other potential marine areas for protection.
2. Enhance management of protected areas and habitat connectivity including marine parks.
3. Regulation of visitors to marine areas of high ecological value, such as coral areas.
4. Establish wetland conservation systems including Coastal protected areas in Pak Nai, a key area of important species such as horseshoe crabs, seagrasses and oyster reefs.

Some of Hong Kong’s beautiful butterflyfish

5. Enhance existing ecosystems and restore degraded habitats or declined biological resources, through habitat restoration programmes for seagrass, coral communities.  The further deployment of artificial reefs.
6.  Enhance actions to protect endangered wildlife including enhancing wildlife protection and protection of non-resident cetaceans.
7.  Introduce new legislation prevent, deter and eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Hong Kong
8. Reduce pollution to levels that are not harmful to the aquatic environment, including removal or marine refuse and ghost nets in important areas.

The strategic area aims to integrate biodiversity conservation into every sector of society, Priority projects of interest to Living Seas Encourage and promote awareness and community involvement through citizen science initiatives to foster responsibility and active stewardship of nature Promote sustainable ecotourism including assessing carrying capacity of ecotourism hotspots

This strategic area focuses on bolstering Hong Kong’s capacity for biodiversity conservation.

Priority projects of interest to Living Seas

1. Improve knowledge on local biodiversity and ecosystems, including biodiversity surveys and compilation of list of threatened species.

This strategic area aims to broaden and strengthen partnerships across regions, industries and communities to strengthen conservation of nature for the benefit of more people.

Priority projects of interest to Living Seas

1. Conduct cooperative surveys / projects and exchange data on various species with neighbouring cities and regions.
2. Conduct cross department operations and cross border intelligence exchange.
3. Support cross border research projects on topics related to nature conservation and sustainable development

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It was a highly productive year with some great results and some amazing observations recorded.

In 2024 we conducting eleven Marine Life Surveys covering areas in the Eastern waters,  we initiated these marine life surveys back in 2021 and we now have four years of data. This is a citizen science initiative with a formalised process to record what marine life are found at different dive sites in Hong Kong.

This year we surveyed 11 different dive sites in the Eastern waters of Hong Kong, as illustrated with the following map.

If you would like to see a complete map of the sites we have surveyed.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=19pBnfgCRq3X9DarA5Vsk2nKvaCk6j10&usp=sharing

2024 was a very productive year, with more that 2,100 observations recorded and a record number of species seen, photographed and recorded.   The following charts shows the number of  Living Seas species by date and dive site.

Dive sites within Port Shelter area of Sai Kung continue to show exceptional marine biodiversity, with Basalt Island yielding some amazing observations this year.  The results continue to support that areas such as Basalt Island, Sharp Island and Bluff Island need more protection from harmful human activities.  Harmful activities include overfishing, ghost nets, poor anchoring and marine litter.

A quick look at a few of our marine dive days this year.

The team from our May 19^th survey dive to Basalt, with hand signal for ghost pipefish, an  exciting first time observation on our survey dives.

The July dive and the first time we dove on the Western side of Tsim Chau island in Tai Long Wan. Gloomy conditions with rain, but some first time sightings of blackspotted pufferfish, blue spotted wrasse, it was also of interest that we found an extensive area of seaweed.  The fact that the seaweed continued to thrive into warmer summer waters, was of particular interest to researchers at HKU.

20^th October Survey dive, yielded some surprise results, with two unusual trevally sightings, and some first time sightings of special damselfish at Sharp Island. We get surprises everytime we go underwater.

Watch this space for more updates coming.

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Here a few snaps from some of the efforts this year

In February we went to Lung Hai Wan to cleanup a rocky shoreline that is often exposed to prevailing winds. Typical scene, unfortunately of a plastic and styrofoam strewn beach.

Working with the HK Government through FEDH, the rubbish was sorted and disposed responsibly.

Coastal cleanup in July. A team used kayaks to go to more remote locations amongst mangroves in Tolo Harbour. Lots of discarded fishing nets amongst other marine litter were collected, sorted and disposed of sensibly.

A fun day out with a mission. ..!

This was the second kayak coastal cleanup in 2023, we completed an event in April in Sai Kung.

Two cleanups held in November and December yielded a good result and lots of trash collected off Silverstrand Beach in Clearwater bay.

All rubbish was carefully sorted and counted and information provided to the HK government through their Coastal Cleanup programme.

Coastal cleanups will continue, but Living Seas will continue to work with the authorities to try to get to the source of the problem, much needs to be done to reduce marine litter.

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On the 17th December 2022, we published our initial survey results.  

Overall to date we have a recording of 157 species observations, in 10 dive sites, and with a total of 16 dives. The range of species recorded was from 13 (at the Yacht Club in Causeway Bay), to 97 different species at Basalt Island.

These surveys point towards key sites that we believe need to be better protected. Along with other groups in Hong Kong and the international goal to protect 30% of seas from overexploitation and damage, we would like to see additional Marine Protected Areas setup in Hong Kong.

The following image shows the dive sites that we have surveyed.  (click here to access directly : https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=19pBnfgCRq3X9DarA5Vsk2nKvaCk6j10&usp=sharing 

A summary of our summary report can be downloaded from this link.

Living Seas Marine Life Survey – summary report

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To celebrate World Ocean’s Day 2022, 勃勃海洋 Living Seas Hong Kong is organising a Marine Survey Dive on Saturday 11th June.

The objective is to have a fun day out exploring a dive site in the Sai Kung area, and then record what we find.

All records will be entered into our growing database. We are aiming to more fully understand what can be found at different sites at different times of the year.

We are looking for experienced divers to join us. If you are interested please do click on our Event Registration link.

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Living Seas Hong Kong’s mission has always been to “preserve Hong Kong’s seas for future generations”. But what do we actually advocate for? This article discusses the six measures that we recommend:

1. Enhance local biodiversity
2. Establish comprehensive fisheries management system
3. Expand and deepen Marine Protection Areas
4. Institute species protection laws
5. Establish robust measures to address Marine Pollution, including both debris and other waste (eg, chemical, agricultural runoff)
6. Require thorough, open and independent Marine Impact Analysis for every major infrastructure project

Please read our article below published recently in Yahoo News:

News article on six suggested measures to preserve Hong Kong’s seas

《勃勃海洋》的使命一直是“為子下一代保護香港的海洋”， 但我們真正提倡的是什麼呢？ 本文概述了我們六項建議的措施：

1. 加強本地生物多樣性
2. 建立綜合性漁業管理制度
3. 擴大和深化海洋保護區
4. 訂立物種保護法
5. 制定強有力的措施來解決海洋污染問題，包括垃圾和其他廢物（例如化學、農業徑流等等）
6. 要求對每個重大基礎設施項目進行全面、開放和獨立的海洋影響分析

請閱讀我們雅虎新聞文章以了解更多資訊：

News article on six suggested measures to preserve Hong Kong’s seas

The post 保護香港海域 – Preserving Hong Kong’s Seas appeared first on Living Seas Hong Kong.

The teams of three worked together and one of the team would be responsible to take photographs for a post dive species verification, as needed.

A report will be produced with the findings from the day. We aim to make this a resource for the diving industry as well as to document species diversity changes over time at different locations.

Living Seas Hong Kong plan to conduct further surveys in different dive sites, and are keen to get Hong Kong divers involved, send us a message at get_in_touch@livingseas.hk

A few photos from the survey to give you a flavour.

The post New Marine Life Survey initiative launched appeared first on Living Seas Hong Kong.

Diver briefings, designed to educate on good practices and dive objectives.

The following are a few underwater photos from the day

From left to right:

A school of barracuda were observed.
Medium size White spotted Puffer
Unusual cleaning behaviour, with sweepers and single cleaner wrasse
Some areas of decent hard coral coverage
Good Pearl Spot Chromis schools were found.

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Living Seas Hong Kong participates in Hong Kong Reef Check 2016
Raising public awareness about the value of coral reefs

(Hong Kong, 13 August 2016) A team of divers from Living Seas Hong Kong 勃勃海洋 (LSHK) participated in the Hong Kong Reef Check 2016 to monitor the health of the coral communities in Hong Kong.

The LSHK team prepared their scuba diving gear and set off to Tau Tun, Kat O Island (吉澳頭墩). Divers recorded the indicator species including 20 fishes and invertebrates along with the coral coverage and health status. The data helps to assess the coral condition and fauna diversity of the coral reef ecosystems over time.

Coral communities are rich in biodiversity. Species observed by the LSHK Team include wrasses, groupers and snappers. Invertebrates like crabs, urchins, sea cucumbers as well as vertebrates including different tropical coral reef fishes make up the rich underwater biodiversity.

Ng Tze Yan, the scientist for LSHK’s Hong Kong Reef Check team, said, “As we observed, the existing coral reefs at Tau Tun are quite healthy, not bleached or damaged. There are quite a number of fishes that we can find.”

“However, there are quite a number of sea urchins there. High densities of sea urchins can feed on the corals and cause damage. We should have a closer look at the situation.” Ng added.

“Our motto for LSHK is to preserve the marine environment for future generations,” said Jeffrey Lee, the co-founder of LSHK. “So one thing we can do is contribute our part to the reef check survey. This is also an opportunity to educate people about the state of Hong Kong’s marine environment and what we can do to help to preserve it.”

Hong Kong Reef Check 2016, a four-month exercise starting from June, covers the marine areas in the eastern part of Hong Kong waters, including a number of sites of ecological importance.

Participation in the global Reef Check initiative helps to track changes and stochastic impacts on reef systems worldwide. The data is primarily obtained through the annual reef check survey performed by citizen scientists under the guidance of a marine biologist. The data collected then feeds into a global database.

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