Forest of seaweeds along the coastline in and around the Hong Kong waters, rich with thriving marine life was something real in the not too distant past. Something so beautiful and constructive that Nature gave us was sacrificed for the development of a thriving City. Now the Hong Kong’s underwater scenery is bleak and the marine ecosystem is totally out of balance. A sad situation which should be rectified, so that our children and future generations will regain and be able to enjoy what Nature gave us. There are still pockets of indigenous seaweeds in the Hong Kong waters and trying hard to regenerate itself to their former glory. Due to the deteriorated marine environment to leave the restoration to nature will take a long time and may never happen.
Rotary Club of Hong Kong South (RCHKS) has taken the initiative to help Nature to speedup the restoration. A project steering team of 3, which will include 1 from the RCHKS, the major funding group representative, 1 scientific adviser from HKU, the Project Champion, PP. George Li and a volunteer as project secretary. The team will be chaired by George Li. Initially, we propose to harvest existing gremlings / rhizoids from nearby control sites and transplant them in strategic locations on the Southside of Hong Kong Island to either reintroduce or increase the population of Sargasuum. At the same time our scientific partner HKU's SWIMS is exploring ways to spawn them on substrate in a lab environment, with a long term view to repopulate the Hong Kong coastline without putting undue pressure on existing clusters.
In the future, with extra funding and approval the project will be scaled up to cover other sites in the Southern District and other Coastline in Hong Kong waters. The long-term goal is to have self-sustaining populations of seaweed forests in and around the Hong Kong coastal areas that grow year after year.