Late last year, a section of the Upper Tai Po River was dammed by an illegal 25-metre-long road. Trees were felled and 258 square metres of surrounding land were excavated. Conservationists were aghast at the considerable damage done to this pristine and ecologically valuable environment. The road was built to provide access to an unapproved village housing project, and only came to the attention of the authorities through the vigilance of a member of the public.
The case recently came to court, at great public expense of time and money. The perpetrator was fined Hk$6,500 and told to contribute HK$9,588 towards restoration costs. He had earlier been fined HK$1,000 for cutting down the trees. He must be laughing at being let off so lightly. The fine is not likely to have covered the cost of prosecution, and it is highly likely that the restoration costs substantially exceeded the amount of his contribution.
All over the New Territories, deliberate acts of environmental degradation and illegal road building are taking place. The problem has become epidemic in recent years because of the high prices being fetched by village houses: it is not unknown for village houses in prime locations with good access to fetch more than HK$20 million. In other words, millions of dollars stand to be made by developers of village houses, but only where good road access can be provided. There is a big incentive to provide this access illegally - trees and streams be damned!
It cannot be said that the government is especially vigilant in identifying and enforcing these and other illegal activities in rural areas. These cases are difficult to put together and involve a lot of time.
But it must be galling for government departments to put in all the effort of building and bringing forward a case, only to see the accused let off with a paltry fine. Perpetrators make a very simple calculation: the chances of being caught are very slim; even where they are caught and brought to court, so what? What are fines of a few thousand dollars, measured against the possibility of making millions if they can get away with it?
The judiciary needs to catch up. The maximum fine in the case described above is HK$50,000 and six months imprisonment. A monetary fine of this level, and a prison record, would go a long way to changing the assessment of risk by offenders.
There are two ways for fines to work as a deterrent: either, low fines but high rates of detection; or, low rates of detection and high fines. In these cases, rates of detection are necessarily low, since the activities take place in remote areas. So the deterrent will only work if fines are high.