Just Another Dead Tree

News that yet another majestic old banyan tree is on death's door should surprise no one in Hong Kong. This city's government has demonstrated time and again that not only has it no clue how to preserve trees, it seems Hell-bent on destroying them.

A 200-year-old Chinese banyan in Kowloon Park - once dubbed the "king of urban trees" because of its magnificent spread - is dying, its roots suffocated by soil and bricks placed around its base.

Its decline is in the terminal stage and only a miracle can save it from following the fate of a 150-year-old banyan that died in the park in 2001, according to tree expert Jim Chi-yung.

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The 20-metre "king" banyan - officially listed as an old and valuable tree in 2004 - once boasted a crown spread of 27 metres but now looks half-dead, with a few leaves dangling from dried and weakened branches.

The department has pledged "intensive care" efforts to save the tree. But Professor Jim, chair professor of geography at the University of Hong Kong, said more than 80 per cent of the leaves had fallen off and its crown was getting smaller, showing the tree had entered its death phase.

Doesn't that just piss you off?

Given the Leisure and Cultural Services Department's record of utter incompetence in tree management, why hasn't it hired Professor Jim to prevent ruinations such as this?

The banyan was planted two centuries ago on the site which later became Whitfield Barracks. In 1989, when building Kowloon Park, the former Urban Services Department paved the area to make it "neat and tidy", compressing the ground and condemning the tree to a slow death.

Professor Jim said the compressed soil stopped oxygen reaching the roots and trapped carbon dioxide released by the soil's micro-organisms, which poisoned the roots. To make matters worse, the covered surface deprived the roots of water.

The Leisure and Cultural Services Department finally heeded his requests to remove the bricks in 2005, but it was too late. The department drilled holes around the tree base to help it breathe but in the process damaged some of the roots, which became infected and died.

The department had installed bamboo poles to help the banyan's aerial roots reach the ground to grow a substitute trunk, but with no leaves to provide nutrients, none made it.

Which begs the question: why is the LCSD handling trees in the first place? Don't get me started on how it has butchered the trees in Victoria Park.

The LCSD should stick to running museums and Cantonese opera shows.

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