Hong Kong Marine Life

Understanding the number of species we have in our marine environment is a basic need if we are to protect and conserve our biodiversity. This is vital in today's rapidly changing world, not just here in Hong Kong, but especially in Southeast Asia which holds the world's most diverse marine habitats. SWIMS is playing a major role in trying to measure and conserve these important resources, both within Hong Kong but also, together with its regional collaborators, in Southeast Asia." said Professor Grey A. Williams, the leader of this study and the Director of HKU SWIMS.The enormous array of marine life in Hong Kong, however, has yet to receive its desired level of conservation as currently only less than 2% of Hong Kong's marine area is protected as marine parks or reserve as compared with approximately 40 % of our terrestrial area. The Government has committed to designate more new marine parks in the coming years. The Brothers Marine Park in the northern Lantau waters will be launched soon, which will bring Hong Kong's total protected marine area to more than 2%. The research team welcomed the initiative of the new marine park while also urging the Hong Kong government to move towards the global target of at least 10% marine protected area by the year 2020 under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).