Few years ago, Long Valley Wetland became well-known not only in Hong Kong but around the world because of the most debating conservation issue in History.
In terms of ecological values, Long Valley possesses an open wide area with very little human disturbance. Active agricultural activity had created diverse micro habitats for wildlife especially avifauna (birds). Wetland acted as important foraging habitat for a huge number of migratory birds and wetland dependent species like Wood Sandpipers and Black-winged Stilt.
In 2000, The Kowloon–Canton Railway Corporation (KCR; now renamed as MTR Corporation Limited) proposed building a spur line linking Sheung Shui Station and Lok Ma Chau Station with the aim of relieving the stressful passenger flow at Lo Wu Station. The original plan was constructing a flyover, passing through the central part of Long Valley. Such construction would cause habitat fragmentations in Long Valley, dramatically downgrading the ecological and landscape values. Although mitigation wetlands were proposed so as to fulfill requirement of Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance (EIA), this could not compensate the loss in ecosystem due to wetland destruction.Once a wetland system was destroyed, not only the wildlife was affected but also the soil, water resource, agriculture, landscape and living culture would be altered or they would even disappear. The project arouse public awareness, a large number of general public together with green groups opposed the project. Finally, Environmental Protection Department refused to issue an environmental permit for the spur line project. KCR had to replace the flyover plan by an underground tunnel beneath Long Valley.
With the completion of the underground tunnel, the spur line cameintouse in 2007.
Habitat Fragmentation is anecological term meaning thatthe smaller the habitat area, the smaller thenumber of species within it would result. Therefore, a larger continuous wetland supports a higher species diversity than the same area of subdivided wetlands. Habitat Fragmentation is a very serious problem in local ecology. Construction projectshave already destroyed lots of important ecological hotspots. Within a small piece of wetland, the ecosystem failsto support a healthy bird community. For example, upon theKam Tin wetlanddestruction, Greater Painted Snipe, a rare freshwater wetland dependent species, was restrictedonly tohabitatsinTsung Pak Long.
