日前中大校方以 "眾志綠山城" 回應中大學生, 教職員和校友所聯署的 "齊來保護我們的綠山城". 校內師生和校友對信中扭曲的內容非常不滿.
有接近消息人士(全文載於本文末)質疑指校方借環境督導委員會 "過橋", 因為一直以來, 委員會都被當作橡皮圖章.
由於李達三樓的重建計畫導致大量林木被毀, 引起師生不滿, 中大環境督導委員會曾有於第十六次會議指出, 因為小組不是行政單位, 沒有人手物力去監督校園工程濫伐樹木的問題, 正式向校方提出要組成獨立工作小組, 進行監察與督導, 可是卻被發展和工務部門阻撓 (第十七次會議). 因為資源有限, 委員會最後只能進行最底度的監察: 即委員會不會就個別的砍樹事件進行監督, 只能以每一季的報告為基礎, 去評論砍樹政策及其對校園的影響. 環境委員會會議紀錄可於此下載: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/usce/
Yale-China Association 的 director, Mark Sheldon 亦認為, 就著崇基火車站的發展, 應該來一個公開的評估和討論, 才決定下一步的校園發展.
大學服務中心的熊景明教授則心水清地指出, 以前在范記非常稀有的紫色鳳凰木不見了. 此外, 校方以70年代的照片與06年的比, 把80和90年代的照片略過了. 並著校方公佈各項工程的環境評估報告及預算等財務報告.
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有關中大環境督導委員會的全文(顏色為筆者所加):
The University is finally willing to engage in a dialogue with all the stakeholders of the University community who are concerned with the protection of the campus environment. The letter from Prof. Michael Hui is to be commended. Having said that and after scrutinizing the responses from Prof. Hui, many questions still remain. It is beyond this letter to scrutinize his letter point by point. With two thousand staff/faculty members, students and alumni who have already expressed their concerns with tree felling, many of them will no doubt have their own responses to Prof. Hui’s letter. This letter will only focus on one specific and extremely important point.
At the end of his letter, Prof. Hui cited among other things the University Steering Committee on Environment (USCE) as an important committee to ensure that the campus environment is duly protected. The committee is probably the most important mechanism from the view of the university leadership to protect the campus environment, otherwise Prof. Hui would not have put it at the top of his list of measures taken by the university. It is therefore useful to scrutinize the role of the USCE. Fortunately, the work of USCE is highly transparent and it has uploaded its documents and minutes on its website (http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/usce/) from which we can find out how serious the university is as far as the protection of the campus’s environment is concerned.
It is extremely revealing to go through the documents in great detail because there were heated discussions on tree felling in those minutes. From these documents, it is very clear that the USCE has no manpower or resources to monitor and enforce environmental protection on the campus. At best, the USCE is not clear what it’s role is supposed to be and, at worse, it is just a rubber stamp for works departments in the university. It is also extremely clear that representatives from the works departments tried all they could to block important initiatives proposed by the chairman. The issue of tree felling activities on the campus first appeared in the 16th meeting of the USCE. The Chairman first raised the issue because “he had received negative feedbacks from staff, students and media about tree felling that had taken place related to the Li Dak Sum Redevelopment Project.” Also, the Chairman expressed concerns about the unclear role of the USCE. The representative from the CDO said that they had “complied with all government requirements, such as Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department & District Land Office.” But, as any one familiar with environment protection knows, this is at best a bare minimum, and the university campus deserves more! The discussion was postponed to the next meeting.
While we don’t know what was going on in between the meetings, the minutes of the 17th meeting are informative. Apparently, the Chairman discussed the matter with the works departments in between the meetings. But according to the minutes, “his earlier proposal to set up a Special Task Force on Tree Felling to vet tree felling proposal had not received enthusiastic support from the works departments on campus (my bold).” Without the support of the works departments, the Chairman submitted a discussion paper (2005/06-001) on tree felling activities. Downloadable from http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/usce/, the paper highlighted “the unclear role of UCE”. In particular, there was no clear-cut guideline and format as to how projects involving tree felling activities submitted to the USCE should be dealt with. Apparently, the USCE did not have the manpower and resources to make proper assessment of these tree-felling activities. In other words, the approach prevailing at that time effectively left tree felling entirely to the discretion of the works departments and was only subject to the bare-minimum requirements laid down by the government! Without checks and balances, common sense suggest to us that it is highly undesirable to leave such an important matter to the works department whose only interest is likely to have the projects completed and may not be aligned with environmental protection. In response to this unsatisfactory situation, the Chairman put forward four proposals:
A. Business as usual approach
B. USCE advises on the environmental acceptability of a tree felling proposal through an ad hoc expert group to be set up
C. USCE submits comments on tree felling proposals to the Campus Planning Committee which takes the final decision.
D. USCE does not advise on individual tree felling projects but monitors the tree felling at the a general level by receiving quarterly tree felling reports and scrutinizing policy, practice and outcome of tree felling on campus
Details of these four options may be found in the document cited above. At the end of the day, the committee members accepted Option D. Sadly, this option seems to be the bare minimum and it was adopted largely because of the limited resources and manpower of the USCE and this option relies entirely on the compliance of the bare minimum required by the government. The problems with Option D as listed in the Chairman’s discussion paper are: (1) “Members of the University may feel that they do not have input on campus greening and construction, (2) The requirement laid down in government guidelines may not meet the specific requirements of the CU campus and expectations of the University community.” It is interesting to note that Prof. Chu Lee Man raised a very important question. He “questioned whether any appeal system exists if all complaints are handled by the works departments and USCE has moral responsibility in the case.” The minutes did not say whether any explicit appeal mechanism was set up except that the works departments were asked to submit reports and disclose information, very passive measures that in no way help protect trees on the campus.
At the end of the day, the USCE could only discuss general policies. A committee so restricted is no doubt a committee without teeth. In so far as the USCE is supposed to be one of the most important bodies monitoring the campus environment, it has failed miserably. The minutes available are up to the end of last year so that we don’t know what the latest developments are. But based on those minutes, one cannot help but left with the impression that tree felling activities are left entirely at the mercy of the works departments. There is no independent body that can judge whether certain trees should or should not be cut.
It is really sad that the beauty of our campus is quickly disappearing before our eyes. Unbridled development totally is gaining the upper hand. Preservation of our environment and our heritage is helplessly fighting a losing battle. Unfolding before us is an environmental disaster in the making. But we don’t think that the choice between development and environmental protection is so stark and there should be a compromise. All is not lost if all stakeholders of this university speak up. Let us end by quoting DH Lawrence from his essay “Flowery Tuscany”:
And it is the achieving of the peculiar Italian beauty which is so exquisitely natural, man, feeling his way sensitively to the fruitfulness of the earth, has moulded the earth to his necessity without violating it.
Which shows that it can be done. Man can live on the earth and by the earth without disfiguring the earth. It has been done here, on all these sculptured hills and softly sensitively terraced slopes.
If Tuscany can do it, why can’t we? After all, we are all human.