Themed as Green Voices for this year’s conference, the one-day event at Discovery College, Discovery Bay, was to have students from 12 ESF member schools to brainstorm potential campaigns in raising environmental awareness in Hong Kong.

Guest of honour, Ms. Christine Loh, Under Secretary for the Environment HKSAR, took the stage as the Chief Judge for students’ work on various campaign ideas in raising environmental awareness. Ms. Loh’s insights in the environmental policy developments of Hong Kong gave students an unprecedented insight into how decision makers tackle some of the very challenging questions in promoting conservation in Hong Kong, such as the domestic waste recycling programme.

Keynote speaker, Dr. Andy Cornish, former Director of the WWF Hong Kong, spoke about his campaign experiences around the total ban of trawl fishing in Hong Kong under his directorship between 2005-2012.

Dr. Willie Smits was the keynote speaker in the 6th Annual ESF Environmental Conference

Dr. Willie Smits, keynote speaker in the 6th Annual ESF Environmental Conference was also present at this year ‘s conference.

Students from one of Masarang HK’s partner schools, the Victoria Shanghai Academy (VSA), also took part in this event and presented ideas on school greening. This included the utilization of a slope behind the school for tree planting for education and vertical greening on school buildings.

Teams from other schools presented ideas on reducing food waste in school, banning shark fins, recycling plastic in consumer products and reducing air pollution.

The participating schools at this year’s conference included:

• Kennedy School (microbits),
• Shatin Junior School (plastic products),
• Discovery College (Shark Fins),
• Renaissance College (Food Waste),
• Clearwater Bay School (Shark Fins),
• Kowloon Junior High (Food Waste),
• Glenealy School (plastics),
• Quarry Bay School (Air Pollution),
• Beacon Hill School (Food Waste),
• Peak School (Ivory),
• Victoria Shanghai Academy (Air Pollution),
• Bradbury School (Food Waste).

You can find more information at the ESF website and ESF Facebook.

Dr. Willie Smits, Adrienne Watson and Royce To visited the Victoria Shanghai Academy (VSA) on 14 Nov 2012. Dr Smits was able to share his decades of efforts in forest conservations and community empowerment.

He talked to a groups of 120 high school students, and shared the stage with six VSA students, who talked about their recent visit to the Tasikoki Wildlife Education and Rescue Centre in Sulawesi. During their 8-day visit to the Cico Centre and Tasikoki, students explained that they had had worked hard, but thoroughly enjoyed their experience, in addition to learning a lot about wildlife rescue and conservation. Mr Adam Copus, a staff member and the teacher who had coordinated the CAS trip, stated that he was impressed by their proactive learning attitude.

During the VSA school visit, Dr. Smits also took the chance to visit a 4/5-acre area slope in the school grounds with potential to be transformed into a functional area of relevant planting, such as food crops and ‘forest’ for education, whilst enabling students to have a hands-on approach in understanding more about community forestry and agro-forestry. Both the primary and secondary principals believe that the transformation of this shared land would enhance their curriculum and raise awareness about sustainability.

VSA is a strong supporter of Masarang Hong Kong and during the visit, the VSA also collected a number of the hand-made Pongos, which will be sold to provide support for a women’s collective in Indonesia and also support more animal rescues in Indonesia.

Article written by Royce To (http://royceto.com/blog/?p=17) and reproduced here with his permission.