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Topic: Closing MP for AI bad for conservation 因禽流感關閉米埔壞保育 (Read 1167 times) |
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Mike Kilburn
Committee Member
BBS God
Posts: 334
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Closing MP for AI bad for conservation 因禽流感關閉米埔壞保育
« on: Jul 18th, 2006, 1:02am » |
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Last week the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau proposed to close Mai Po if any bird with H5 avian influenza is found within 3 km of Mai Po.
While HKBWS welcomes Government using criteria to decide when to close Mai Po (an improvement on last winter, when it was closed and reopened without explanation), it seems they are not using the right criteria, and global experts predict that unnecessary closure of reserves is likely to have a negative conservation impact.
The Govt proposal goes against the advice of global experts who met in Kenya in April to discuss bird flu in wild birds:
The conference paper can be found at: http://www.cms.int/avianflu/conclusions_rec_ai_seminar.pdf.
It also goes against recommendations made by the UK Government: http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/disease/ai/wildbirds /.
Why is this?
It seems that the HK govt is ignoring the fact that the total worldwide number of humans catching bird flu from wild birds is ZERO.
(This is because the risk of infection is much lower in wild birds, who carry much smaller concentrations of the virus, and peopel rarely come into close contact with wild birds).
Also, the recommendations in the HK Govt paper are based on how to control an outbreak of H5N1 among poultry, not how to stop people getting sick from wild birds.
You can read this paper, and the views of HKBWS and WWF on the LegCo website at:
http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr05-06/english/panels/fseh/agenda/fsag0711.htm.
Scroll down to point V and you can download each paper.
Also local infectious disease expert Dr Lo Wing Lok and world class microbiologist Professor Malik Pereis of Hong Kong University have publicly stated on Radio 3 in March there there is no good reason to close Mai Po!
So why is the Government proposing to close Mai Po? It just makes no sense from a scientific perspective, and causes a negative conservation impact by making people unnecessarily fearful about wild birds.
HKBWS urges the Health Welfare and Food Bureau to review the recommendations and best practices from overseas and amend its proposals to meet the best interests of the birds, and most importantly to calm the unjustified fear of wild birds which grips the Hing Kong public.
Mike Kilburn
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| « Last Edit: Jul 18th, 2006, 1:22pm by Webcreeper » |
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Mike Kilburn
Vice Chairman
Chairman - ConservationCommittee
HKBWS
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