Recently, some "mysterious wooden poles" with English characters erected on Shui Hau wetland. In fact, we have conducted land survey within the area of our habitat management project and have recently started using marked wooden poles to indicate the boundaries of land lot. After period of observation, we have noticed that the cattle would forage near the wooden poles, harmoniously coexisting with the "mysterious wooden poles". The surveyors will continue to place more wooden poles. If you have any questions about the survey work, please feel free to contact us!

 #MarshManagement

If you have recently been to the Shui Hau mudflat and walked along the cement road in the swamp, you might have come across three beautifully designed information boards along the way. These three information boards are made by local recycled wood for introducing our project (Nature Conservation Management for Shui Hau), the latest news of the project, and some trivial knowledge. The content will be updated according to the project's fieldwork progress so the public can understand what is happening on-site. Please take a closer look at those wooden boards if you pass by!

#CommunityEngagement

↑ The information board that introduces the project

↑ Showing the aerial photo with the extensive farmland of Shui Hau in the past

Lunar New Year Events in Shui Hau Village

Lunar New Year is one of the most important celebrations among rural villages. Shui Hau village is no exception, as the indigenous inhabitants still keep passing down their traditions to generations. Every second day of the Lunar New Year (“初二”), the villagers will gather and return to Shui Hau Village to celebrate the arrival of the new year, even though some of them have moved to urban areas. Shui Hau villagers continue the tradition of worshipping “Tai Wong Yeh (大王爺)” and “Shea Tan (the shrine of the Earth God who protects the farmland), and even “Cai Qing (採青, meaning plucking the greens) with lion dancing. In the old days, the Shui Hau villagers had been practising farming for a living. While we have planned to kick off the recultivation in Shui Hau, it is hoped that joining the worship of “Tai Wong Yeh” and “Shea Tan” would be a good start for the future farmland rejuvenation and wishing for a new page of good future for the nature in Shui Hau.

We have designed a set of five ”Fai Chun” (Chinese couplets) (1) “福 (Good Fortune)” character: blue colour in the middle of the character with the words “Shui Hau (水口)” and gold rice on the “田 (farmland)” character, implying a prosperous year; (2) “Like a Fish in Water (如魚得水, meaning is similar to like a duck to water)”; (3) “Be Always Smiling” (笑口常開)”; (4) “Smart and Clever”; (5) “Long Live Spirit”. (2)-(3): by connecting the bold characters/arrangement in the picture, the words “Shui Hau (水口)” can be read out, hoping to bring blessings to Shui Hau Village in the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile, all the “Fai Chun” have auspicious cloud patterns composed of the Chinese characters “Shui Hau (水口) “. During our visit on the second day of the Lunar New Year, we saw many villagers putting up our designed ”Fai Chun”. There were lots of villagers admired the design of “福” that includes the element of irrigation channel and paddy fields, echoing their hope on the revival of the extensive golden farmland landscape through our project.

Finally, we are very grateful to the villagers for inviting us to celebrate the Lunar New Year together so that we could all feel the lively atmosphere and traditions of the rural village. After the Lunar New Year, we will start to recultivate the farmland that has been neglected for a long time, as we have been conducting a baseline ecological survey for a year and have nearly finished the land survey. Good luck with our farmland recultivation!

#CommunityEngagement

↑ “Tai Wong Yeh” worship

↑ “Shea Tan” worship

↑ “Cai Qing” with lion dancing

↑ Distributing “Fai Chun” to villagers at Shui Hau “Fung Wong” Store

↑ The design concepts of Shui Hau “Fai Chun”

In October, we held a villagers’ meeting with those who joined our project. The purpose of the meeting was to report on the project’s progress and review the project timeline and details. At the end of 2022, the land survey will be kicked off to survey the farmlands’ boundary for constructing farmland bunds. Therefore, apart from the tree tags, you will notice some boundary poles appear on the marsh. Afterwards,we will begin the construction of farmland bunds as soon as possible, and then we will remove the poles gradually.

#CommunityEngagement

In the two previous posts, we have updated the processes on the two main elements (#ResearchAndStudies & #CommunityEngagement) of the Shui Hau Project. For this time, we will look at the latest news on the #MarshManagement! If you have been to Shui Hau recently, you might see the trees along the narrow road in the marsh were attached with tags of white background and black numbers (Figure 1 & 2). These tags will be helpful in the tree survey in the future, in which the surveyors will be able to record the tree species with the tags and maps. In order to create an open marsh area, management measures will be further implemented according to tree assessment results. That is to say, we may strengthen conservation measures or carry out selective tree removal.

Figure 1: Attaching tree tags

Figure 2: Measuring the distance between trees for map making

In the hot summer of July, our student interns joined the tree tagging team (Figure 3 & 4), which tagged over 80 trees in a day. We have encountered different creatures during our work in the marsh, and there was once a Brown Tree Frog jumped onto the body of a student intern, blinking its eyes and climbing up (Figure 5). Fortunately, our student interns were not scared by its passion; they even tried to observe it carefully and take the opportunity to rest simultaneously. After finishing the work and being ready to call it a day, a buffalo blocked the road when we left the marsh, and the curious buffalo even rambled towards us. Gazing at each other for a while, we decided to go backwards and wait for the buffalo to return to the marsh sluggishly, then we slowly left. After a hard-working day, student interns have experienced how to respect the nature and understand the challenges and importance of working for a wetland!

Figure 3: Student interns walking in the marsh

Figure 4: Student interns measuring the distance between trees

Figure 5: A Brown Tree Frog jumped onto the body of a student intern

Figure 6: The buffalo we met on the road

#MarshManagement #ShuiHau #SHMA #LantauConservationFund

Notice Board Arrived!

In the last article, we have mentioned the updates of Ecological surveys & Hydrology study in the #ResearchAndStudies aspect. On the other side, regarding the #CommunityEngagement part, we have some village environment improvement works ongoing. Shui Hau villagers told us that they had an idea to install a notice box outside the village office for a long time for the sake of the village’s internal information dissemination. At the same time, villagers suggested that we could make use of the notice board for project announcement. Then, we decided together on the place for installing the notice board and asked the Shui Hau village representative to help with the installation. From now on, there is one more communication channel in the Shui Hau village!

#CommunityEngagement #ShuiHau #SHMA #LantauConservationFund

The Project started in December 2021 and will last for three years. The first phase mainly focuses on ecological research, habitat planning, hydrology study, as well as trial works on habitat management. Besides, we focus on engaging and co-operating with Shui Hau villagers and stakeholders during the project's first phase. At the project's beginning, we met with Shui Hau villagers and stakeholders several times to explain the project vision, information, and planning. Finally, support was gained from many of them. The above work in the first phase would be beneficial to the establishment of re-cultivation and long-term wetlands management strategies in Shui Hau.

Ecological surveys

Ecological baseline surveys and standardised monitoring were kicked off and covered 8 taxa, including vascular plant, mammal, bird, amphibian, reptile, freshwater fish, butterfly and odonate. For amphibian, reptile and freshwater fish, night surveys will be conducted as most of them are nocturnal species.

You can see some bamboo sticks standing on the marsh, which indicates the fixed area for surveyors to carry out standardised monitoring and examine the ecological effects with various habitat management measures as a before-and-after experimental design.

Hydrology study

Hydrology study is one of the important tasks at the beginning of the Project. The data collected from the hydrology study can help revise and adjust habitat management measures in the future. Therefore, the hydrology study setups were installed at different locations in the wetland for the collection of data.