Grassroots student alliance opposes Lantau development
By Wynne Ho
On October 29th, 2019, the Hong Kong Green Schools Alliance (HKGSA) visited the Legislative Council to voice their opposition towards the Lantau Tomorrow Vision (LTV) project.
The HKGSA is a grassroots student team led by RCHK alumna Tiffany Wong and student Taylor Chung. At LEGCO, the team met with six legislators: ESF Chairman Abraham Shek, Eddie Chu Hoi-dick, Au Nok Hin, Kwok Ka Ki, Andrew Wan, and James To.
They discussed alternative measures to the LTV project and left with the chance to meet with Mr Shek again in the future. The group then composed a proposal to encourage the adoption of alternative measures in the alleviation of Hong Kong’s housing crisis, delineating the alarming economic and environmental costs of the LTV project.
Having garnered considerable public attention, the HKGSA has appeared in numerous interviews with media outlets such as the Hong Kong Free Press, HK01, Young Post, and the Life on Lantau Magazine. With the support of the public, they recently launched a petition on Support HK, offering alternatives to the LTV project whilst debunking the notion of land shortage in Hong Kong. The petition has already reached a thousand signatures, making substantial progress towards the goal of three hundred thousand signatures.
“We’re really surprised to have reached one thousand [signatures] within a week or two of [the petition’s] launch,” said Chung in response to the petition’s remarkable growth.
The HKGSA has also made significant progress in encouraging greater student participation from all around Hong Kong. They recently launched the Student Ambassador Programme, which strives to foster environmental consciousness in local and international schools, offering both Chinese and English programmes. Chung expressed the importance of spreading the word to local schools, having voiced that recruiting both local and international school ambassadors was requisite for “really mak[ing] a tangible difference.” In regards to his involvement in local school communities, Chung recently visited Ng Yuk Secondary School, where he learnt about the school’s sustainable gardening and shared the development of the RCHK Sustainability Team’s activism with other environmentalists. Moreover, the HKGSA also aims to build their social media presence on their newly launched Instagram page (@hkgreenschoolsalliance), which raises awareness on both the LTV progression and the importance of sustainability in general.
Despite the monumental strides made by the HKGSA, their activism has also faced hardships. According to Chung, the HKGSA was condemned for spreading propaganda when requesting permission to share their petition in a Facebook group. The administration slammed the petition as “one-sided” and refused to engage in productive dialogue.
Nonetheless, Chung expressed his unwavering optimism in the HKGSA’s future sustainability activism. “I think that as a team, we’re able to overcome these challenges by recognising that we can’t win every battle, but we can focus on winning the war,” said Chung.
HKGSA at LegCo in 2019.