源起｜落塘源野藝術節

In January 2018, Art Home and the Hong Kong Bird Watching Club held the first "Fish Pond Yuanye Art Festival" , hoping to share the concept of natural education and sustainable life with the public through artistic creation.

There is a friend who has been engaged in nature education for many years in the art festival team. She noticed that the traditional guided appreciation education focuses on explaining ecological knowledge and the audience is limited. Therefore, she imagined other possibilities of nature education: the integration of artistic creation into nature education may make More people feel it, so they take the initiative to cherish nature.

In the first art festival, we invited artists to create in Dashengwei in their own ways, such as traditional fishing nets with ideas derived from the ecological chain of fish ponds, sculptures of pee boys silently by humans, and songs composed for life in fish ponds. , Pond mud birds from fish ponds, wing sculptures that shade the fish pond passers-by, short films reflecting on the ecological chain, etc., combined with ecological guided tours and various workshops, present participants with different aspects of Tai Sang Wai.

Fortunately, the art festival received a good response.

In January 2019, we will once again hold an art festival in Tai Sang Wai, with the theme of "Luotang Yuanye Art Festival", hoping to let the participants live in "Luotang" for learning, and participate in a more diversified and active way in.

"Luotang Yuanye Art Festival" will include three main parts:

Luotang Art Exhibition

Luotang Yuanye Classroom

Participatory creation

We sincerely invite you to appreciate the creation of "Luotang Yuanye Art Festival" on January 19 and 20, 2019, participate in workshops, guided tours and other activities, "fall in the pond" together, and learn in nature!

About 30 to 40 years ago, the Fairview Garden next to Tai Sang Wai was a fish pond area. Due to construction works, local residents were arranged to live in Tai Sang Wai next door. There are currently about 70 residences in Tai Sang Wai, and the elderly also account for the majority. Among them, only 3 to 4 households are engaged in fish farming.

The Tai Sang Wai Fish Pond is located in the Ramsar Convention Wetland, adjacent to the Mai Po Nature Reserve. The construction of this place is strictly regulated by the government. The government will often send inspections. If fish farmers need to build new sheds to store their utensils, It also needs to apply to the government and is subject to strict supervision by the government.

There are currently about 40 fish ponds in Tai Sang Wai with a water depth of about 2 to 6 meters. The famous fish pond in Deep Bay is Yuen Long Aconitum, which accounts for about 5% of the supply of Hong Kong’s freshwater fish market. As early as the 1940s, the fish farming industry in Hong Kong mostly operated in the form of kewai. By introducing seawater with shrimp fry and fry in the Deep Bay, the seafood was raised in the coastal kewei. However, due to the pollution of the Deep Bay water, fish farmers have switched to fish ponds. There are some containers or bamboo sheds around the fish ponds for storage of supplies. Many of them used to be like the common water sheds in Tai O. In the fish pond, we can see different fish farming equipment, such as aerators, feed machines, fish nets, wooden frames for placing food, etc.

Fish ponds regularly have a shoveling process to eliminate bacteria that accumulate in the water and soil. Generally, after harvesting in autumn and winter, the fish ponds will be drained and dried, and then bulldozers will be used to shovel the ponds. Migratory birds will take the opportunity to forage during this time. With the change of seasons, birds often come to forage in Taishengwei. Chi-heron and Great Egret are common birds in Taishengwei.

In order to improve the economic benefits of fish ponds, fishermen also use the fertile pond mud to grow fruit trees, such as big pineapple, yellow bark, and mulberry trees. The tea fruits wrapped in mulberry leaves are the specialty snacks of the villagers in Dashengwei.

Beginning in 2012, the Hong Kong Bird Watching Society has received funding from the Environment and Conservation Fund to launch a pilot project of nature conservation management agreement in fish ponds in the northwestern New Territories. Through cooperation with local fish farmers, habitat management work has been carried out on fish ponds of more than 600 hectares to improve And improve the ecological value of fish ponds, maintain the attraction to wild animals, especially attract waterbirds to inhabit and forage. In addition, fish ponds are also breeding or habitats for amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and insects (such as dragonflies, fireflies, etc.). This ecologically beneficial operation of fish ponds is of great ecological value. The purpose of the management agreement is to achieve an ecological balance in all aspects, including humans, birds, and other living things, and each meets its needs. In 2017, the plan was extended for two years, with enhanced content including ecological surveys and education and publicity, and organizing different types to increase public participation and awareness of fish ponds and wetland conservation.

Hong Kong Fish Pond Ecological Conservation Project Website

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