Interviewee: Kelvin So, Manager, Oceans Conservation, WWF-Hong Kong

Q1: Tolo Seascape has seen a significant decline in fishery resources and habitat quality over recent decades. Despite these multiple pressures, why is Tolo still identified as a priority site for sustainable fisheries management and marine conservation?

Tolo Seascape was once one of Hong Kong's most productive fishing grounds, but decades of urban development and fishing pressure have taken a heavy toll. Land reclamation reduced the sea surface area by nearly half, and sustained commercial fishing pushed the ecosystem well beyond what it could sustain. Coral coverage has fallen from around 80% to just 2%, areas where seagrass beds were once recorded have disappeared, and fishery resources have declined sharply.

Yet we chose Tolo precisely because we see its resilience and potential for recovery. As a semi-enclosed bay, its geography acts like a natural nursery and spawning ground, providing important habitats for juvenile fish. Local scholars have been conducting coral restoration research in the area for years, with encouraging results already emerging, demonstrating that this ecosystem has the conditions to recover. The government has also named Tolo Harbour and Port Shelter as potential Fishery Protection Area (FPA) sites in its policy documents, making the direction clear. The target of this project is to provide the scientific backing to turn that policy into reality.

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Coral restoration efforts in Tolo Seascape have shown promising results, with over 1,000 corals successfully restored — a testament to the ecosystem's capacity for recovery.

Q2: How is the "fishery characterisation landscape map" different from a standard fishery survey?

Standard surveys, while methodologically rigorous, often only capture a snapshot of conditions at a specific point in time, and may not fully capture long-term changes within the fishery ecosystem. Our approach is built on a Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) framework, led by Dr. Leung Po Shan from Island Studies Network (HK). Through in-depth interviews with fishers and various water-based workers, the project transforms decades of accumulated experience and memory into precise spatial data. All findings are ultimately integrated into a GIS spatial map, giving the public a visual and engaging way to truly understand the history and present of this seascape.

Q3: The government has proposed Fishery Protection Areas (FPAs) in its policy documents. What specific insights will this project provide to help turn these proposals into reality?

We will provide scientific evidence from three angles. On spatial analysis, by combining habitat restoration data with the fishery characterisation map, we can identify core areas of the highest recovery potential, providing evidence-based guidance for FPA boundary setting.  

On fish genetic data, we are working with Dr. Arthur Chung of HKU to conduct non-invasive genetic diversity analysis on five key fish species to calculate a Genetic Health Risk Indicator that assesses population health and genetic resilience.  

The fishery characterisation map further reveals fishing hotspot distribution, human activity patterns, and carrying capacity, providing a practical framework for future zoning and management design. Together, these three datasets build the scientific foundation, while community engagement establishes the social foundation needed to make policy advocacy truly compelling.

Q4: You have emphasised that scientific data alone is insufficient when advocating for marine conservation. What does that mean in practice at Tolo?

At its core, marine conservation is about people. Data alone cannot change anyone's behaviour, and without community participation and buy-in, even the most rigorous scientific conclusions may remain confined to reports.

The stakeholder landscape at Tolo is genuinely diverse: traditional fishers, fish farm operators, water sports users, and surrounding community residents, each with different expectations and concerns. If conservation measures are driven solely by scientific evidence, they may easily be perceived as externally imposed restrictions and create resistance. So alongside our scientific work, we place equal weight on listening, documenting fishers' decades of experience, understanding their livelihood needs, and exploring transition pathways together, whether that means leisure fisheries or sustainable aquaculture. When communities feels that conservation not as a restriction, but as a way of protecting their future, conservation can shift from passive acceptance to active participation. Scientific evidence, community engagement, and policy advocacy are all interconnected, and conservation efforts cannot succeed over the long term if any one of these elements is missing.

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Understanding the lived experience of local fishers is central to the Embracing Our Tolo project. Their decades of knowledge form the foundation of the fishery characterisation landscape map.

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Q5: What does a "successfully conserved" Tolo look like by 2030, in the context of the global "30x30" conservation targets?

By 2030, I hope Tolo can become a living demonstration of Hong Kong's Ridge to Reef ecological connectivity, with effective management allowing the seascape's ecological restoration work to be matured and scaled up, achieving systematic and long-term restoration. Fishery resources should be showing measurable signs of recovery, an established framework for Other Effective Area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) framework should be in place as a transitional mechanism before any formal FPA designation, and it should define seasonal fishing closures, no-take zones, and managed fishing areas that allow sustainable fishing to continue within an appropriate structure, enabling fishery resources to recover. Most importantly, I hope to see fishers, communities, government, and academia build a genuine co-management mechanism together, not stepping in after problems emerge, but standing together as long-term stewards of this seascape from the very beginning.

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Interviewee – Dr. Leung Po Shan, Anthony, Principal Researcher, Island Studies Network (HK)  

Q1: In Tolo, how has the transition of water people from life on the water to settling on land changed the community's relationship with the sea?

The movement between water and land has always been a two-way flow, not the one-directional migration we tend to assume. Local water people refer to moving ashore as "going to the streets" — a process that unfolded mainly in post-war Hong Kong, particularly between the 1960s and 1980s. A large influx of refugees, combined with land reclamation and reservoir construction, prompted the colonial government to relocate water-based communities onto land. The largest resettlements in the Tolo area stemmed from the construction of Plover Cove Reservoir in the 1960s, and the filling of bays near Yuen Chau Tsai and the narrowing of Sha Tin Hoi in the 1970s.

Before resettlement, fishing grounds, waterways, and community settlements were organically self-organised by water-based residents according to local conditions, shaped from the bottom up. After resettlement, the once free-flowing sea was gradually functionalised, categorised, and brought under regulation, and that bottom-up process of people and nature finding their way together disappeared. The transition from water to land was not simply a change of address, it was a fundamental transformation in the relationship between a community and its water.

Dr. Leung Po Shan and her team conducting oral history fieldwork with local fishermen. Stepping away from standard questionnaires, the team guides interviewees through open conversation, allowing decades of lived knowledge to surface naturally and transforming it into a spatial record of Tolo Harbour's changing seascape.

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Q2: In your fieldwork, what ecological knowledge shared by Tolo's interviewees left the deepest impression on you?

Almost every interviewee opened with the same words: "No more fish!", followed by: "Tolo used to be so clear, you could see right to the bottom." Those two sentences alone capture decades of ecological change.

I must be honest: I know nothing about fishing, and I cannot dive. But perhaps because of that, I am all the more struck by how much our interviewees know. Take atrinas: fishers can distinguish those living in sandy ground, called "sa chaap", from those in muddy ground, "nai gaau", and further differentiate "baau jai gaau" from "sa mei gaau". To me, these are names without taste or shape. To them, this is the knowledge they live by every day. Seasons, currents, the habits of different species, every detail is etched into their memory and their bodies. This is what Local Ecological Knowledge (LEK) means in practice, and it is a depth of understanding no standardised questionnaire could ever reach.

Q3: How do you select candidates for in-depth interviews, and transform what you hear into a fishery characterisation landscape map of Tolo?

The Island Studies Network (HK) begins from a simple but important premise: to step away from a terrestrial perspective and understand Hong Kong through the lens of its seas and islands. Water is fluid and leaves no fixed imprint the way land does, yet the activities that unfold continuously on and beneath its surface constitute a place just as rich in history and meaning. Tolo is a prime example: production, infrastructure, and leisure all intermingle across the same stretch of water, making it an extraordinarily layered and busy seascape.

In selecting interviewees, we use a snowball approach, starting from key connectors and gradually expanding our network to include fishers, aquaculture operators, and other water-based workers. Rather than a standard questionnaire, our interviews are conducted indirectly and patiently, guiding interviewees to recount their personal experiences and allowing the story of how Tolo has changed to emerge organically. All of this oral history is ultimately integrated with fishery resource distribution and activity hotspot data, and transformed into a  spatial map, so the public can read the past and present of this seascape in a way that is visual and accessible.

Q4: Many fishers have transitioned to leisure-based livelihoods on the water. In your view, what is Tolo's conservation really protecting?

People of the sea have a phrase for going out to fish: "doing business". Catch the fish, trade it, exchange it for what you need, generate value, build social relationships. Leisure fisheries are really just another form of doing business, the model has shifted from calculating fuel, catch, and price to calculating footfall and operating costs, from counting fish to counting people, but the fundamental spirit has not changed. The sea is unpredictable, and those who make their living on it understand impermanence better than anyone on shore, adapting ahead of policy rather than after it. Give the fishers room to lead, let policy follow, and there will always be people who choose to live by the sea.

But conservation in Tolo cannot stop at economic transition. What I always come back to is this: we are not trying to preserve a fixed outcome, but to help sustain and renew existing ways of life and community bonds. The festivals tied to water: Tin Hau Festival, Da Wong Ye Festival, dragon boat racing, will gradually become hollow rituals if the communities that give them meaning disappear, unable to sustain themselves once severed from the economic activities that fund them.

The Hoklo community in Tai Po stayed with me most from this research. Even after most families resettled on land, they have maintained their cohesion through festivals and language. This kind of society, where communities overlap and differ, share and diverge, is precisely what keeps Hong Kong from becoming homogeneous. What Tolo is truly worth protecting is this living diversity.

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Traditional festivals belong to everyone — not just water-based communities. Pictured here, a group of divers arrives at Tap Mun to celebrate the Tin Hau Festival. The pier behind them, known by Tap Mun villagers as the "Main Pier", forms a central axis with the Tin Hau Temple, a deliberate alignment made out of reverence. Water-related cultural landscapes remain an integral part of everyday life.

Islands are not isolated units. Ko Lau Wan once housed an ice factory and fuel station serving the fishing fleets of Tap Mun just across the water, while Sam Mo Shek to the west looked to Tap Mun as its community centre. A pennant gifted to the Tap Mun Youth Association stands as quiet proof of bonds that crossed every stretch of water between them.

Interviewee – Dr. Arthur Chung, postdoctoral fellow, HKU SBS and SWIMS

Q1: What information can a tiny fin clip's genetic analysis give us? And what are the advantages of this method?

When fishers land their catch, we take a small fin clip no bigger than a fingernail and extract its DNA. We then read a key gene marker called COI, which works like a universal barcode for fish species. It tells us exactly what species we are dealing with, and crucially, how much genetic variety exists within that local population.

Genetic variety, measured as "nucleotide diversity", shows how different individuals are from one another at the genetic level. Low variety is a red flag, often signalling that a population crashed in the past due to overfishing or habitat loss. Unlike traditional surveys, this genetic approach is rapid and cost-effective, and the same straightforward method can screen dozens or even hundreds of species simultaneously. The genetic diversity indicators can serve as a valuable supplement to traditional fishery assessments, offering additional insights into population resilience and long-term sustainability.

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A fin clip no bigger than a fingernail holds more information than it appears. Through DNA analysis, a single sample can identify a species and reveal the genetic health of an entire local population, opening a window into the hidden story of Tolo's waters.

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Q2: How does the "Genetic Diversity Risk Indicator" work, and why does low genetic diversity leave fish so vulnerable?

Think of it like a fire danger warning system: red means high alert. We take the genetic variety score from Tolo's fish and compare it against species across East Asia and the wider world using large public databases. If a species' score falls well below the safe baseline, it moves into the red zone.

Genetic variety is the toolbox a species needs to adapt and survive. Picture a vast plantation where every crop is genetically identical. One disease outbreak can wipe out the entire harvest, because no plant carries the resistance trait to fight back. Fish work the same way. Without a range of genetic versions, a whole population becomes vulnerable to the same stresses: heatwaves, disease, and pollution. When variety drops critically low, inbreeding weakens offspring further. The red zone tells us a species is already running short on options, even if a few individuals are still visible today.

Q3: What should the public understand when a local species like the Blackheaded Seabream enters the red risk zone?

It means our fishing habits and coastal development are pushing a familiar local favourite toward disappearing from Tolo, and this is not simply "fewer fish this year." Red zone status indicates that a population has likely contracted dramatically in the past and, in doing so, has lost most of its genetic variety. Recovery becomes genuinely difficult even if we ease pressure right away. It is a wake-up call that demands action, not reassurance.

The Blackheaded Seabream is a staple of Hong Kong dinner tables and a species now in the red zone in Tolo Harbour. Every data point collected here feeds into FishBase, turning local monitoring into a contribution to ocean health worldwide.

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Q4: How does sharing Tolo's data on FishBase contribute to global ocean sustainability?

By uploading our DNA sequences and diversity scores to FishBase, the world's largest open-access fish encyclopaedia, Hong Kong's local findings join a free worldwide scientific library. International researchers can instantly compare trends across regions, and a single dataset from our waters can prompt conservation checks in similar ecosystems globally. It also directly supports UN ocean sustainability goals. What begins as everyday local monitoring in Tolo Harbour becomes a meaningful contribution to keeping fish populations healthy across the planet.

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Dr. Arthur Chung processing genetic samples. From a fin clip collected on a fishing boat, to a DNA reading in the lab, to a data point on FishBase. This simple chain connects Tolo Harbour’s daily catch to a worldwide effort to monitor and protect ocean biodiversity.

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Interviewee – Chui Hung (Tolo Harbour Fisher and Fish Farmer)

Q1: Were you raised in the Tolo seascape? Can you describe your deep connection with this area as a child?

I was born in 1962 into a Hoklo fishing family. We lived on two wooden boats, and by the age of eight or nine I was already helping out, banging wooden planks after casting the net to herd fish into it. Schooling followed wherever the boat was moored; I attended three different schools across the years.

My happiest childhood memory is docking at Sha Tau Kok pier, where the fish market sold steamed buns and sticky rice chicken. I watched the Plover Cove Reservoir embankment being built, stone by stone, from start to finish. The Tai Wong Yeh Temple at Yuen Chau Tsai stood right beside our houseboat, and the stone table inside the temple was where I played spinning tops and marbles as a boy. Back then, the sea was home, and home was the sea.

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Chui Hung shares his memories of a life spent on Tolo's waters with the research team. His first-hand account is a living record that no written document could fully capture.

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Q2: You remember Tolo being clear at 6 metres deep; looking back, what are the most unforgettable changes you've witnessed in this environment over the years?

Tolo's water used to be so clear you could see the seabed from the surface, down to five or six metres. The eastern shore was sandy-muddy ground, and atrinas were plentiful; you could find them just by wading at low tide. Japanese boats would come specifically to Tap Mun to buy red seabreamfry, and there were fishponds and duck farms along the Plover Cove shoreline. The sea was abundant then.

Today, atrinas have nearly vanished from Tolo, and the water is no longer clear. They once sold for six Hong Kong dollars each, a decent price, but now nobody wants them. Decades of reclamation, development, and pollution have quietly transformed this sea. What saddens me most is not that the fish are gone, but that you can no longer see what lies beneath the surface at all.

Q3: You used to "step on atrinas" in abundance; which period of your life at sea do you wish to bring back?

In Hoklo dialect, we call atrinas "blind clams". At low tide along the mudflats of Lek Yuen in Sha Tin, we would wade in and feel for them underfoot. Finding three or four was already something to be proud of. It was part play, part livelihood. Further out along Tolo's eastern shore near Wu Kai Sha and Sai Sha, atrinas lay deeper and you had to dive for them, using pliers to ease them out of the seabed. I taught myself to dive in the days I still lived in Kwong Tau Shan (nearby the current Sam Mun Tsai Road and Ting Kok Road junction) without a mask, navigating entirely by touch.

When it comes to the sea, everything has just fallen into place naturally. From catching fish to farming fish, from running water-based businesses to providing assistance in coral restoration works for NGOs and universities — none of it was planned, it just happened. These days I live on shore, but I still go down to the fish farm almost every day. Sometimes I take a boat out with friends just for the fun of it. The sea has always been here, and so have I.

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Chui Hung still keeps a fish farm at Sam Mun Tsai. It is no longer his main livelihood, but it remains his base on the water — the place where he stays connected to Tolo Harbour and continues to keep watch over the sea he grew up on.

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Q4: If you could share one secret of Tolo with the public, what would it be?

The secret of Tolo Harbour may be that there was a time when fishes were everywhere. When the season was right, the natural bays were thronged with fish fry no bigger than a fingernail. Now, the resources of this sea are not as plentiful as they once were, and many fish species have disappeared from the area without us even noticing. I grew up and lived on this sea. No instruments, no charts for navigation, just the memory of headlands, currents, and the shape of the seabed, all imprinted in my mind. I have seen it at its most abundant and at its most depleted, so I hope it could come back to life.

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