The Role of Environmental Civil Society in Politics of Hong Kong

1. Introduction

In the dying and desperate world of global warming and environmental degradation, environmentalism thrives as people focus more on protecting the environment and improving the society. Environmentalism is an ideology that sustainability is emphasized and it can be pursued by the society like democracy.[1] It led to many establishments of environmental civil organizations. For instance, Greenpeace International was founded in 1971 and had been promoting environmentalism since then. Those organizations act as civil society in the society. Civil society is considered to be the third sector of the society. According to BBC, “civil society is a public space between the state, the market and the ordinary household, in which people can debate and tackle action”.[2] Environmental civil society is a public space that depends on public participation with a shared goal to protect the environment, with various environmental non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

2. Environmental civil society in Hong Kong

In Hong Kong, the first environmental NGO, The Conservancy Association, was founded in 1968.[3] Later in mid-1980s, environmentalism emerged as people started to be aware of urban development and natural habitat ownership and protection. More environmental NGOs were founded in this period, like Friends of the Earth (HK) in 1983 and Green Power in 1988. Some of them are branches of international NGOs like Greenpeace and some of them are local NGOs like Green Power.[4] In the 1990s and 2000s, environmental NGOs diversify with different NGOs focus on different “niches” of environmental protection. According to Hong Kong Environmental Protection Department, some of today’s major green groups in Hong Kong includes: Civic Exchange, Designing Hong Kong, Friends of the Earth (HK), Greenpeace, Green Power, Green Sense, The Conservancy Association and World Wide Fund For Nature Hong Kong.[5] In recent years, they are becoming more active in Hong Kong’s politics to achieve their goals.

3. Role of environmental society in Hong Kong

Environmental civil society and NGOs play various roles in global environmental governance and politics. Barbara Gemmill and Abimbola Bamidele-Izu argued that NGOs’ roles in global politics are representing the voiceless[6], engaging intellectual competitions with the government, mobilizing the public, giving advice and analysis to government, monitoring the government, providing service to the government, and facilitating global cooperation in environmental decision-making.[7] In Hong Kong, environmental NGOs have the similar roles as above, which can be categorized as follows.

• Representing the voiceless

• Giving advice to government

• Monitoring the government

• Promoting public participation

3.1. Representing the voiceless

In Hong Kong, as economic development has always been over-emphasized, environment protection is often compromised in policy-making process. There are always disadvantaged stakeholders in major economic developments in recent years and sometimes they are “voiceless” as they do not have enough political power to be voiced. To help the voiceless, environmental NGOs can represent them in debates and enhance the media coverage during government policy-making process.

Take the proposed North-east New Territories development plan as an example, the Hong Kong Development Bureau proposed that to build a new town on the existing farmlands and villages without enough consultation with the villagers. As the villagers are not educated to express their view and their opinion is neglected in the consultation process, civil organizations like Northeast NT Concern[8] represent them and pressure the government to take the villagers’ opinions into account. In this case, the pressure groups are representing the voiceless (villagers) in politics. Other than voiceless people, environmental NGOs also represent the voiceless environment and animals. In the case of the construction of the third runway, the Chinese white dolphins are affected by reclamation. They obviously cannot speak for themselves so NGOs like Hong Kong Dolphinwatch Limited stood up for them. By representing the voiceless, policy-making can be fairer and the rights of individuals with low political power can be ensured.

3.2. Giving advice to government

Being the public space between the Hong Kong government and ordinary Hong Kong people, most NGOs have better information about people’s needs and can attract different professionals to join them. This helps NGOs to acquire better knowledge than the government in environmental issues and conduct researches on the issues. They then can provide advice and analysis for the government to make better policy decisions.

As Hong Kong’s oldest environmental NGO, The Conservancy Association has been providing the government with suggestions on the Policy Address since 1999. It gives both constructive and critical advice. For instance, they asked the government to enact a new “tree ordinance” and criticize government’s proposal and decision over Lung Mei at the same in their Policy Address Submission 2012.[9] Also, Civic Exchange, an independent non-profit think tank, has a great number of publications to the public and the government to provide future visions for urban planning and timely advice the government in policy-making. For example, it published a report called Cruise Ship Emissions and Control in Hong Kong on 5 Mar 2013. It provided timely information of cruise ship emission to the government that was planning to build a cruise ship terminal in Kai Tak.[10] The government, with better information and advice, can make more suitable and appropriate environmental policy, which can also avoid public grievance caused by implementing a bad policy.

3.3. Monitoring the government

Apart from giving advice to the government, environmental civil society also monitors the government. NGOs closely monitor government’s performance in environment policies making and enforcing. They also expose and oppose government’s wrongdoings or its breach into public interest concerning environment and urban space. Recently, in April 2003, the government reveals that there would be a construction of pier of military use along the harbor front of Hong Kong Island, which affected public interest of use of public space. In response, Designing Hong Kong, a local environmental NGO, issued a press release and sent out an objection letter to the Town Planning Board to demand a halt in the construction.[11] By monitoring the government, its wrongdoings can be exposed; social justice can be served; public interest on the environment can be protected.

3.4. Promoting public participation

As people equal power, the higher the number of people support a NGO, the greater the social capital and negotiating power with the government it has. Environmental NGOs use different methods, usually with a bottom-up approach, to raise the awareness of the public and promote public participation to achieve their goals. Mild as education and radical as law-breaking actions can be adopted to encourage the public to engage in both institutionalized and non-institutionalized political participation.[12]

For radical actions, Greenpeace is a good example to illustrate the point. Greenpeace is a highly independent international environmental NGO that does not receive donation from the government so it is effective in criticizing governments around the world. It is also famous in performing “non-violent direct actions” to advocate people to engage in non-institutionalized political participation like protest and demonstrations. In June 2009, Greenpeace Hong Kong performed a law-breaking act to criticize the Tsang office at the time. Four Greenpeace activists hung a huge 20m x 7.5m banner with portrait of Chief Executive Tsang and “Wanted: Climate Fugitive” on it on the side of the government headquarters. It was aimed to mock Tsang who did not accept the invitation to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. Although the four activists were arrested after that, the message reached to a great number of Hong Kong people through extensive media coverage. With greater public concern on the issue, the government was forced to attend the conference in the end. This also affected the government public approval and social trust on the government.[13]

Other than promoting non-institutionalized political participation, some local NGOs also promoted institutionalized political participation by competing in the Legislative Council election. In 2008, Roy Tam, founder of Green Sense, joined the Legislative Council election for the Kowloon West district as an independent candidate with comprehensive election platform on environmental protection. His pro-democrat political views helped him to gain the pan-democrats endorsement.[14] This was the first time in Hong Kong that an environmental activist participates in the Legislative Council election. Although he lost with a huge margin, he was still able to bring the discussion of environmental issues from civil society to institutionalized political scene. He allows voters to express their environmental concerns directly with their ballots through institutionalized political participation. This also gave the people an idea that they can pressure their politicians to be more environmental-conscious in legislation. From the above examples, it clearly illustrates how the civil society promotes public participation to achieve environmental protection.

4. Conclusion

Environmental problems are everyone’s problems. They can be solved effectively with appropriate government policies with great public participation. Therefore, the environmental civil society, being between the government and the people, plays important roles of representing the voiceless, giving advice to government, monitoring the government and promoting public participation in the politics of Hong Kong.

[1] Donald Gibson, Environmentalism: Ideology and Power, (Nova Science Pub Inc., 2003). [2] BBC, "What Is Civil Society?." Last modified July 05, 2001. Accessed April 28, 2013. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/highlights/010705_civil.shtml. [3] The Conservancy Association, "Mission of The Conservancy Association." Accessed April 28, 2013. http://www.conservancy.org.hk/aboutCA/mainE.htm. [4] Chiu, Stephen Wing Kai. The Dynamics of Social Movement in Hong Kong. Hong Kong University Press, 2000. [5] Environmental Protection Department, "Non-Government Organisations / Green Groups." Last modified March 26, 2013. Accessed April 28, 2013. http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/english/links/local/link_greengroups.html. [6] The voiceless is the environment and people who are not well-represented in policymaking. [7] Gemmill, Barbara, and Abimbala Bamidele-Izu. "The role of NGOs and civil society." Global environmental governance: Options and opportunities (2002): 77-101. [8]In Chinese: 新界東北發展關注組 [9] The Conservancy Association, "Policy Address Submission 2012." Last modified 2012. Accessed April 28, 2013. http://www.conservancy.org.hk/monitor/policy/Policy Address Submission 2012.pdf. [10] Simon, Ng. Civic Exchange, "Cruise Ship Emissions and Control in Hong Kong." Last modified March 2013. Accessed April 28, 2013. http://www.civic-exchange.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/201303cruiseships_en.pdf. [11] Zimmerman, Paul. Designing Hong Kong, "Re: Amendments to the Central District (Extension) Outline Zoning Plan No. S/H24/7 as reflected in the draft No. S/H24/8.." Last modified April 10, 2013. Accessed April 28, 2013. [12] Examples for institutionalized political participation are legislative council election and government consultation. Examples for non-institutionalized political participation are civil disobedience, protest and demonstration. [13] Greenpeace Hong Kong, "全力通緝「氣候逃犯」曾蔭權." Last modified June 23, 2009. Accessed April 28, 2013. http://www.greenpeace.org/hk/news/stories/climate-energy/2009/06/donald-wanted/. [14] Tam, Roy. "綠色香港 來自你一票 – 譚凱邦競選網站." Last modified September 12, 2008. Accessed April 28, 2013. http://roytam.wordpress.com/.