# Keeping Hong Kong's 400 Miles of Hiking Trails Alive, One Step at a Time > How Felix Yung and his team rebuild Hong Kong's hiking trails after rain, erosion and storms. A story of caring for the routes we love. - URL: https://langandtrip.com.ua/en/article/pidtrymka-400-myl-turystychnykh-stezhok/ - Language: en - Published: 2023-01-08 - Categories: Hiking, Historic Sites, Mountains, Tours, China, Mountain, Relaxation --- Felix Yung pauses to let a pair of huge black buffaloes pass by. He is standing on a hiking trail in Ma On Shan Country Park, a jumble of mountains and lush forest in the eastern part of Hong Kong. Beneath his feet, the trail itself, once neatly marked out, has been washed away, its stones surrounded by mud and trampled vegetation. That is a problem for Yung, an officer with the country parks division of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD), which is responsible for managing 440 sq km (170 sq miles) of Hong Kong's public land: hills and mountains, beaches and islands, dotted with trails, barbecue sites and campgrounds. Hiking trails in Hong Kong have to withstand high temperatures, downpours and typhoons that topple trees and block paths. Regular use widens a trail as more and more people step off it to overtake others or walk several abreast, and water damage makes the problem worse, turning dirt into a treacherous slurry. Beyond its intended users, the trail also has to cope with buffaloes, wild cattle and boar, which occasionally dig up sections of it. But these intruders are nothing compared with the main challenge: the people the trail was built for. ![](/storage/image/prev/052023-32-1024x576.jpg) ## **What Does the Coronavirus Have to Do With Hiking?** Trail maintenance, like so many other issues, has been made harder by the coronavirus pandemic. Although the trails are meant for walking, that very use also means slow destruction, forcing the AFCD into constant repair and upkeep of more than 610 kilometers (380 miles) of trails. "The frequent and intensive use of the trails has become a challenge for us," Yung says. "At certain points the trails were deteriorating faster than we could maintain them, so we have to work at finding a way to keep the use sustainable." Hong Kong, home to around 7.5 million people across 1,100 square kilometers (425 sq miles), is one of the most densely populated places on Earth. By comparison, the smallest US state, Rhode Island, is more than twice the size and has roughly one seventh of the population. And unlike Rhode Island, Hong Kong has a reputation, only partly deserved, as a "Blade Runner" style cityscape of neon and high-rises. Cut off from travel to other countries, with offices, restaurants, beaches and gyms closed, people were confined more than ever to their apartments, among the smallest and most expensive of any city in the world. "The amount of public space available to most people is about the size of a toilet cubicle," says Alicia Lui, project director of TrailWatch, a Hong Kong hiking app. "People need somewhere to go to get fresh air and exercise." For many locals, hiking became a lifeline during the pandemic. TrailWatch says that in the first half of the year new downloads of the app rose almost 150% compared with the same period in 2019, while the number of people tracking hikes through the app grew by more than 100%. The busier the trails, the faster they wear down, and the less time AFCD staff have to repair them. Sections can be closed off, but that risks people going around them through the forest, exactly what the department is trying to avoid. The AFCD has no dedicated staff working solely on trail maintenance. The responsibility is shared among all the officers working in the parks, who also handle fire prevention, facility upkeep, assisting country park visitors and other tasks. ![](/storage/image/prev/052023-33-1024x576.jpg) Since 2016 the AFCD has brought around 600 volunteers into its trail maintenance workshops, but the work is still done mostly by staff. It can be hard and slow going. To avoid causing further damage to the trails and the surrounding forest, the AFCD mostly avoids using vehicles, and nearly all materials are carried by hand, sometimes for many kilometers uphill. Although stone and other materials are usually bought locally, they sometimes have to be hauled uphill from sea level. Piles of materials are built up at the top of the trail during maintenance, then moved down during construction. The effort that goes into building and maintaining trails can sometimes go unnoticed. The AFCD does most of its work on weekdays and in the off season. Recently the department has moved away from the concrete and paving of past decades to give trails a more natural look. ## **Classic Hikes, Modern City** Today Hong Kong has around 130 official hiking trails, plus countless unofficial ones used by locals as shortcuts or blazed (against the AFCD's wishes and advice) by adventure seekers. They range from easy "family trails" to genuinely tough routes across the mountains. Hong Kong's oldest trails date back before the region was colonized by the British; in the second half of the 19th century, small paths connected the villages and communities scattered across what is now the New Territories. Other trails pass abandoned gun batteries and forts from the Second World War. Besides boar and buffalo, hikers may occasionally come across monkeys and snakes, several of which are venomous (though thankfully rare) species in Hong Kong. "Hong Kong is unique in that you can reach a country park within an hour, often by public transport," says Lui, project director of TrailWatch. According to researchers at the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP), 85% of Hong Kongers live within 100 meters of a car-free space, more than in any other city in the world. ![](/storage/image/prev/052023-34-1024x576.jpg) But with that ease of access can come problems of overcrowding and overuse, and the AFCD admits it has had to fight in the past to educate park users about the need to protect hiking trails and stay on them. "A lot of people don't realize that trails are affected by the people who hike them," Lui said. "It's not just that they walk the same path; as it gets crowded, people start fighting for space, widening the trail, potholes appear, the soil loosens. And everything is now an Instagram spot, so people don't just walk the trails, they climb rocks and cross boundaries (to take photos)." Yung, the AFCD officer, said that in the past the government mostly carried out maintenance itself and adopted a "top-down" model that did little to involve the community. That is gradually changing, and the AFCD increasingly relies on help from hikers, especially when clearing major damage such as that caused by typhoons. The AFCD is also investing more in education, encouraging people to "get their hands dirty and connect with the spirit of the country park," Yung said. Lui said the problem may not be easy to solve, especially with the growing use of the country parks. ![](/storage/image/prev/052023-35-1024x576.jpg) "Maintaining trails is actually a scientific art form; you can't just walk out and maintain them," she said. "People need to be more aware and take part in protecting the trails, including thinking about whether it makes sense to introduce periods when some trails rest completely." Beyond the wear caused by visitors, country parks are sometimes threatened by pressure from other quarters. About 40% of Hong Kong's territory is now taken up by protected park zones, and this land is sometimes pointed to as a potential solution to the city's housing problem. Developers have also expressed a desire to carve off land for golf courses or luxury estates, though such plans are far harder to sell to the public. Environmental groups argue that the cost of shrinking the country parks would not outweigh any benefits, pointing to other potential sites for expanding housing, in particular "brownfields" (former industrial sites) and existing, underused land. "Development within the country parks … will cause irreversible damage to the environment and ecosystems, which is certainly not sustainable growth," Friends of the Earth Hong Kong said in 2018. Lui of TrailWatch agreed, saying that any development of the country parks or reduction of hiking areas would be a serious blow to one of the city's best features. "Not only is hiking good for our physical health, being in nature is good for our well-being (and) mental health," she said.