Blame

There has been a growing consensus on the concerns of collapsing tress in Hong Kong,meanwhile many canvass that who should take the responsibility to cope with the problem,in terms of tree-health monitor, ie.risk assessment and tree-maintenance.It has long been the responsibility of the Leisure & Cultural Services Department to keep the tree's health under surveillance,as reported by the government dated on June 15, 2010.It is not difficult to understand that the wounds of the tree-collapse victims' family cannot be mended just by a condolences as expressed by the related department,yet the government has started to work with the office to investigate the collapse and plan follow-up action.But dolefully the response on the actions taken is poor-- the continued tree-collapse in recent rainy days has shown a failure in preventing tree-collapse.While Mrs Fung,the Director of Leisure & Cultural Services, said, checking trees visually is an internationally approved method of inspection,manipulating this method in inspecting the trees in Hong Kong has raised loads of doubts on me.

Most of the common trees we found in Hong Kong are actually NOT native species ,meaning that most of them are imported from other countries,such as Acacia confusa (台灣相思), Melaleuca quinquenevia (白千層),Ficus elastica (印度榕),Delonix regia (鳳凰木) etc,as people are lack of the knowledge about the habits of these tress,including experts,it is pretty difficult to have an exact determination on whether the trees are ailing or not.

The second thing is that it can be comonly seen the cleaners but not gardeners take the responsibility of shaping the tree crowns.Literally,the bare wounds of where the branches are cut off will be easily infected by bacteria,they may then rotten and putrid.Moreover,branches that lap over can easily induce bacteria growth and other ailment.

Thanks to the frantic weather these days--infected trees could no longer withstand their own weight and fell,we shall see how this perplexity is tackled.