These are privately owned fruit trees adjacent to somebodies house. The owners are free to manage the trees as they choose (to reduce an insect pest, increase fruit yield, or even because they do not want the trees).
The trees at Long Valley do not provide important habitat for any bird species. As Ho-fai mentions, trimming these trees actually opens the habitat which makes it more attractive to open-country and wetland bird species, for which Long Valley is important. Furthermore, the trees have only been trimmed - they will regrow from the bases, probably with stronger new growth. This is common practice for management of fruit trees (in english it is known as pollarding, or coppicing if the cuts are at ground level).
I really cannot believe that members of the society are so upset by the trimming of four trees at Long Valley while there has been no response to the thread regarding the (illegal) destruction of the Kam Tin Buffalo Fields, with potentially severe impacts to the HK population of Grey-headed Lapwing, Painted snipe, etc
http://www.hkbws.org.hk/BBS/view ... 6488&highlight=
