Mai Po Marshes

Mai Po Marshes
Fish pond in Mai Po
Mai Po Marshes is located in Hong Kong
Mai Po Marshes
Location within Hong Kong
LocationSan Tin, Hong Kong
Nearest cityYuen Long
Coordinates22°29′56″N 114°02′45″E / 22.499°N 114.0458°E / 22.499; 114.0458
Websitewwf.org.hk/en/whatwedo/conservation/wetlands/managemaipo/
Official name
Mai Po Marshes and Inner Deep Bay
Designated4 September 1995
Reference no.750
Mai Po Marshes
Traditional Chinese米埔濕地
Simplified Chinese米埔湿地
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinMǐpǔ Shīdì
Hakka
RomanizationMi3bu4 Sip5ti4
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingmai5 bou3 sap1 dei6
Gei wai
Mangrove boardwalk
Wildlife Education Centre
A guide giving a lesson to a student outing tour

Mai Po Marshes (Chinese: 米埔濕地; Hong Kong Hakka: Mi3bu4 Sip5ti4) is a nature reserve located in San Tin near Yuen Long in Hong Kong. The nature reserve covers 380 acres (1.5 km2) of Deep Bay, an internationally significant shallow estuary, at the mouths of Sham Chun River, Shan Pui River (Yuen Long Creek) and Tin Shui Wai Nullah. The nature reserve is located within the Inner Deep Bay Ramsar site. Mai Po Marshes has been managed by the World Wide Fund for Nature Hong Kong (WWF) since 1983. Access to the nature reserve is partially restricted and requires visiting permits.

The nature reserve supports globally important numbers of wetland birds, which arrive in winter and during spring and autumn migrations. The nature reserve also hosts a large diversity of mammals, reptiles, and insects.

Various educational and research activities operate at the nature reserve to monitor animal populations with help from public participation.

Protected status

Conservation status

Inner Deep Bay was listed as a Ramsar site under the Ramsar Convention on 4 September 1995. This Ramsar site covers 1500 acres (6 km2) and is managed by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department. Mai Po Marshes occupies a 380-acre subset of the broader Ramsar site.

Deep Bay faces several threats, including pollution, local urban development plans and rising mudflat levels that may arise from intense urbanization, especially (in recent years) on the north, Shenzhen side of the bay.

Access

While the area was taken out of the Frontier Closed Area on 15 February 2012, Mai Po Nature Reserve remains a restricted area under the Wild Animals Protection Ordinance (Chapter 170) to minimize disturbance to wildlife.[citation needed]

WWF is responsible for visits in the reserve, requiring visitors to have a 'Mai Po Marshes Entry Permit' to be able to enter the reserve. Individuals can apply for a permit by writing to the Agriculture, Fisheries & Conservation Department of the Hong Kong Government.[citation needed] The aforementioned Individual Permits normally take about a week to be processed.[citation needed]

Mai Po Marshes receives some 32,000 visitors annually.

Biodiversity

In recent years, it housed over 55,000 migrating birds, across over 350 species, including Saunders's gull (Chroicocephalus saundersi) and a quarter of the world's Black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor) population. However, the overall numbers are declining every year. The critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea) is still recorded regularly on migration. The reserve also includes inter-tidal mangroves along with 24 traditionally operated shrimp ponds (called Gei Wai locally) to provide food for the birds.

38 mammal species inhabit the reserve, more than anywhere else in Hong Kong. Mai Po is home to one of the highest densities of leopard cat in the territory; however, they are nocturnal and rarely seen. Small Asian mongooses are quite common in the reserve, often encountered by visitors near Gei Wai ponds during the day in winter. A small population of Eurasian otters, a locally endangered species, is found in Mai Po.

The marshes also have rich insect biodiversity, hosting the endemic Mai Po bent-winged firefly (Pteroptyx maipo), the first species of the genus to be recorded in China.

Education and research

WWF Hong Kong has been carrying out firefly surveys of the nature reserve to monitor seasonal population changes of the endemic Mai Po bent-winged firefly (Pteroptyx maipo). The surveys have also incorporated citizen science participation, using platforms such as iNaturalist and events such as the City Nature Challenge into activities at the Mai Po center.

Avian flu outbreak

In February 2008, the Hong Kong government closed Mai Po for 21 days following the discovery of a great egret infected with H5N1, also known as avian flu. The closing marked the fourth in as many years and was consistent with the government's policy of closing Mai Po whenever an infection is discovered within a 3 kilometer radius of the premises.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) criticized the government, however, for what it called a discrepancy between the standards for closing Mai Po and the comparably less strict standards applied in urban areas. WWF wanted compensation of HK$1 million. WWF then claimed that the government had not compensated it for lost income.

Panorama of the Mai Po reserve

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Mai Po Marshes and Inner Deep Bay". Ramsar Sites Information Service. Retrieved 25 April 2018.
  2. ↑ "2015 District Councils Election - Summary of the District Council Constituency Areas". Hong Kong Government. Archived from the original on 2023-12-01. Retrieved 2019-09-09.
  3. ↑ "District Council Constituency Boundaries — Yuen Long District" (PDF). Electoral Affairs Commission. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  4. ↑ Wikramanayake, Eric; Or, Carmen; Costa, Felipe; Wen, Xianji; Cheung, Fion; Shapiro, Aurélie (2020-10-21). Zhang, Yong (ed.). "A climate adaptation strategy for Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar site: Steppingstone to climate proofing the East Asian-Australasian Flyway". PLOS ONE. 15 (10): e0239945. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0239945. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 7577507. PMID 33085699.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: article number as page number (link)
  5. ↑ "Designating Mai Po Inner Deep Bay Ramsar Site". www.afcd.gov.hk. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
  6. 1 2 Yiu, Vor; Cheng, Chui-Yu; Shih, Chun-Hat; Fu, Xin Hua; Ballantyne, Lesley (2011-06-27). "Pteroptyx maipo Ballantyne, a new species of bent-winged firefly (Coleoptera: Lampyridae) from Hong Kong, and its relevance to firefly biology and conservation". Zootaxa. 2931 (1): 8–34. doi:10.11646/zootaxa.2931.1.2. ISSN 1175-5334.
  7. ↑ "Firefly survey at the Mai Po Nature Reserve". WWF Hong Kong. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  8. ↑ Ip, Alex (2018-07-30). "Fireflies (Sort of) Like Lights - The CitizenScience.Asia Journal". Medium. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  9. ↑ "City Nature Challenge". WWF Hong Kong. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  10. ↑ Lam, Agnes (2008-02-27). "South China Morning Post: Mai Po wants review of bird-flu shutdowns WWF seeks HK$1m for closure of reserve". South China Morning Post.

Further reading